News Release

U.S. Department of Labor For Immediate Release:

Office of Public Affairs Tues., July 2, 2002
Washington, D.C. Contact: Sharon Morrissey
PWBA: 02-14 (202) 693-8664

Labor Department Amends EXPRO

WASHINGTON — The U. S. Department of Labor’s Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA) today
finalized an amendment to Prohibited Transaction Exemption (PTE) 96-62, known as EXPRO. This class
exemption will streamline the process for parties to seek authorization from the department to engage in certain
prohibited transactions.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) allows the department to grant exemptions from all or any
part of the restrictions imposed by ERISA’s prohibited transaction provisions.

PTE 96-62 currently requires that applicants demonstrate to PWBA that their proposed transactions are substantially
similar to transactions in at least two exemptions previously granted by the department within five years of their
submission.

The success of the EXPRO program to date has resulted in fewer granted exemptions that may be cited by
applicants who want to take advantage of the expedited process under EXPRO. Therefore, the department amended
EXPRO to provide applicants with more cases on which to base their transactions. The amendment to EXPRO will
allow applicants to cite, as substantially similar, either two individual exemptions granted by the department within
the previous five years, or one individual exemption granted within the past 10 years and a transaction “authorized”
under the EXPRO exemption within the past five years.

Over 180 EXPRO transactions have been authorized as of June 2002. EXPRO has significantly reduced the
number of individual exemptions relating to routine transactions, thus allowing applicants to receive exemptions in
a more timely fashion and often saving them the cost of going through the more formal process for exemptions.

The final amended exemption is to be published in the July 3, 2002 Federal Register. For more information about
EXPRO and the transactions authorized under the program, visit PWBA’s Web site at www.dol.gov/pwba.

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