Michael Curto, deputy chair of the firm’s Business Department, heads Patton Boggs’ ERISA and Employee Benefits Practice group, representing corporate, nonprofit and government sponsors of pension and welfare benefit plans, Taft-Hartley funds, investment advisory firms, and insurance companies in all aspects of retirement and welfare benefit issues. His practice covers a broad range of ERISA issues, with particular focus on the rules governing investment and plan management decisions of corporate and ERISA plan fiduciaries. Mr. Curto has extensive experience representing clients in connection with ERISA fiduciary matters as well as reporting and disclosure compliance matters before the U.S. Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. He frequently negotiates and prepares investment management agreements and major service provider agreements, structures corporate and real estate investments, and conducts the due diligence related thereto. He also represents clients in pension and welfare plan litigation matters, audits and investigations by government agencies, performs legal compliance reviews of large pension and welfare benefit plans, frequently monitors and analyzes pending legislation and proposed and final rule-making related to the administration and management of employee benefit plans and assists clients in their efforts to influence federal employee benefit laws, policies and regulations. Mr. Curto has particular expertise on matters relating to fiduciary liability, litigation and insurance, ERISA's prohibited transaction rules and ERISA's statutory and administrative exemptions, and the rights and obligations of corporations concerning the establishment of and modifications to welfare benefit plans. He has published numerous articles pertaining to ERISA and fiduciary matters. After law school, Mr. Curto held a judicial clerkship for the Hon. Julia Cooper Mack of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.