Employee Benefit Plans

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Employee Benefit Plans

Employee Benefit Plans

Our qualified 401(k) profit sharing plan (401(k) Plan) is the Chesapeake Energy Corporation Savings and Incentive Stock Bonus Plan, which is open to employees of Chesapeake and all our subsidiaries. Eligible employees may elect to defer compensation through voluntary contributions to their 401(k) Plan accounts, subject to plan limits and those set by the IRS. We match employee contributions dollar for dollar (subject to a maximum contribution of 15% of an employee's base salary and performance bonus) in cash. We contributed $24 million, $29 million and $31 million to the 401(k) Plan in 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

We also maintained a nonqualified deferred compensation plan (DC Plan) which we terminated in January 2020 in accordance with its terms. Accordingly, we derecognized the asset associated with the plan after the participants’ investments were liquidated. The cash was distributed to the participants, and we extinguished the corresponding $43 million accrued liability.