Savings and Retirement Plans

9 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Savings and Retirement Plans [Abstract]

Savings and Retirement Plans

12. Savings and Retirement Plans

We sponsor various plans for eligible employees in the United States, the United Kingdom (UK), and The Netherlands. Our retirement savings plan in the United States conforms to Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code and participation is available to substantially all employees. We may also make discretionary contributions ratably to all eligible employees. We made discretionary contributions to the U.S. plan of $157,000 for the nine months ended December 31, 2011.  No discretionary contributions were made to the U.S. plan for the nine months ended December 31, 2010.

Our international subsidiaries have defined benefit retirement plans for eligible employees.  These plans provide benefits based on the employee's years of service and compensation during the years immediately preceding retirement, termination, disability, or death, as defined in the plans.  We froze the UK subsidiary's defined benefit plan on December 31, 2004.  On March 10, 2005, we established a defined contribution plan for the UK subsidiary.  As of April 1, 2005 we closed The Netherlands subsidiary's defined benefit retirement plan for new employees and established a defined contribution plan for them.

The cost for our defined benefit retirement plans in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom includes the following components for the three and nine month periods ended December 31:

	Three Months Ended December 31						Nine Months Ended December 31
	2011			2010			2011			2010
Gross service cost	$	19,000		$	25,000		$	58,000		$	71,000
Interest cost		30,000			29,000			93,000			84,000
Expected return on assets		(5,000	)		(13,000	)		(15,000	)		(37,000	)
Amortization		1,000			4,000			5,000			13,000
Net periodic retirement cost	$	45,000		$	45,000		$	141,000		$	131,000

Major assumptions used in the above calculations for the nine month periods ended December 31 include:

	2011			2010
Discount rate		5.50-6.20	%		4.70-5.50	%
Expected return on assets		5.00-6.20	%		4.70-5.00	%
Expected rate of increase in future compensation:
General		3.00	%		3.00	%
Individual		0.00-3.00	%		0.00-3.00	%

Both the Netherlands and United Kingdom pension plans are in an underfunded position and the funded status of the plans is shown as accrued pension liability. We made aggregate contributions of approximately $163,000 and $144,000, respectively, during the nine months ended December 31, 2011 and 2010 to the two defined benefit plans.