On June 24, 2011, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Marriage Equality Act (the “Legislation”) which will allow same-sex couples to be married in New York State and to have, with certain exceptions, the same legal protections as are available to opposite-sex couples married in New York State. The effective date of the Legislation is July 24, 2011. Employers with employees in New York State have only been given 30 days to comply with the Legislation, and should immediately start taking the following steps to help ensure that their employee benefit plans, programs and policies (collectively, “Benefit Plans”) will comply with the Legislation:

• the requirements imposed by the Legislation should be reviewed to determine how they will affect an employer’s existing Benefit Plans;
• to the extent an employer decides that any of its Benefit Plans have to be changed or that it wishes to make certain changes as a result of the Legislation, the necessary steps to implement those changes should be taken (including, but not limited to, preparing any necessary amendments to the affected Benefit Plans, coordinating with any applicable insurer or third party administrator about the changes being made, obtaining any necessary approval of the applicable Board of Directors or Board of Trustees, and preparing any necessary summary of material modification(s) or revised summary plan description(s));
• all other materials describing employee benefits (benefit summaries, benefit web pages, benefit forms, employee handbooks, etc.) that need to be revised as a result of the Legislation should be identified and revised; and
• a review should be made of any domestic partner policy, and any other employer policy that might be affected by the Legislation, to determine whether any changes might be needed (including an analysis of whether any changes are needed to help address potential discrimination claims, such as those that might be brought by opposite-sex domestic partners in certain circumstances