ERISA regulates most benefit plans offered by private employers, both pension plans and welfare plans. Pension plans systematically defer compensation until termination of employment (or longer), and welfare plans provide other types of benefits designated by statute, of which health insurance is the most costly by far. Because of the importance of ensuring retirement income, health care, and other socially valuable welfare benefits (such as disability income and life insurance), the Code permits plans with certain features to “qualify” for favorable tax treatment, on the theory that such a subsidy encourages provision of benefits that would not otherwise be available. ERISA’s chief policy aims are to promote informed decision making by workers; to prevent mismanagement and abuse of plan assets by administrators; to protect worker reliance on the benefit promises made; and to preserve employer choice with regard to offering benefits and, provided that minimum standards are met, in tailoring benefit programs to serve the needs of the business.

Eight senior advisors were members of Trump’s Team specifically as it pertained to the pandemic. Each was in some way directly and heavily involved in how the president managed/mismanaged America’s worst public health crisis in over a century. Discussed in the chapter are senior advisor, Jared Kushner; chiefs of staff Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows; assistant to the president Peter Navarro; national security advisor Robert O’Brien and his deputy Matthew Pottinger; and counselors to the president Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks. During the coronavirus crisis, each of these advisors, like everyone else named in Part III of the book, prioritized the president’s political interest over the national interest.

Chapter 6 chronicles the story of contributory fault and investor misconduct that this monograph has told. The final chapter of that story is delivering on a promise made in the first chapter: restating the rules on contributory fault and investor misconduct in international investment law. These rules are put forward in this chapter. They have been formulated with a view to their future application in investment arbitrations.