delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 (MPPAA), 94 Stat. 1208, 29 U.S.C. §§ 1381-1461, requires employers who withdraw from underfunded multiemployer pension plans to pay a “withdrawal liability.” An employer may discharge that obligation by making a series of periodic payments according to a postwithdrawal schedule set by the pension fund’s trustees, or it may prepay the entire debt at any time. We resolve in this case a statute of limitations issue concerning this legislation, specifically: When does the MPPAA’s six-year statute of limitations begin to run on a pension fund’s action to collect unpaid withdrawal liability?
Dismissing petitioner trust fund’s suit as time barred, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the statute of limitations runs from the date the employer withdraws from the plan. We reject that ruling. A limitations period ordinarily does not begin to run until the plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action.”
Rawlings
v.
Ray,
Our holding prompts a second question, one that was not reached by the Court of Appeals. Petitioner brought this suit more than six years after respondents missed their first scheduled payment, but within six years of each subsequent missed payment. Respondents contend that petitioner’s failure to sue within six years of the first missed payment bars suit for all missed payments. We disagree. The MPPAA imposes on employers an installment obligation. Consistent with general principles governing installment obligations, each missed payment creates a separate cause of action with its own six-year limitations period. Accord *196 ingly, petitioner’s suit is time barred only as to the first $345.50 payment.
I
A
Congress enacted the MPPAA to protect the financial solvency of multiemployer pension plans. See generally
Milwaukee Brewery Workers’ Pension Plan
v.
Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co.,
Three Terms ago, we complex scheme for calculating withdrawal liability. See
Milwaukee Brewery Workers’ Pension Plan,
The Act does not call upon the employer to propose the amount of withdrawal liability. Rather, it places the calculation burden on the plan’s trustees. The trustees must set . an installment schedule and demand payment “[a]s soon as practicable” after the employer’s withdrawal. § 1399(b)(1). On receipt of the trustees’ schedule and payment demand, the employer may invoke a dispute-resolution procedure that involves reconsideration by the trustees and, ultimately, arbitration. §§ 1399(b)(2), 1401(a)(1). If no party requests arbitration, the installments become “due and owing” on the trustees’ schedule. § 1401(b)(1). Even if the employer challenges the trustees’ withdrawal liability determination, however, it still must pay according to the trustees’ schedule in the interim under the statute’s “‘pay now, dispute later’ collection procedure.”
Robbins
v.
Pepsi-Cola Metropolitan Bottling Co.,
Should the employer fail to pay according to the schedule, the plan may, at its option, invoke a statutory acceleration provision. § 1399(c)(5). It may also sue to collect the unpaid debt. Plan fiduciaries “adversely affected by the act or omission of any party under” the MPPAA are entitled to “bring an action for appropriate legal or equitable relief, or *198 both.” § 1451(a)(1). Suit under § 1451 must be filed within the longer of two limitations periods: "6 years after the date on which the cause of action arose,” § 1451(f)(1), or “3 years after the earliest date on which the plaintiff acquired or should have acquired actual knowledge of the existence of such eause of action,” § 1451(f)(2). The Act extends the latter period to six years "in the case of fraud or concealment.” Ibid.
B
Petitioner Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund (Fund) is a multiemployer pension fund for laundry workers in the San Francisco Bay area. Respondents Ferbar Corporation and Stephen Barnes (collectively, Ferbar or the company) owned three laundries in the area until approximately 1990. For several years, Ferbar contributed to the Fund on behalf of employees at all three facilities. In 1983, Ferbar ceased contributions for one of the laundries; the company ceased contributions for the other two facilities in March 1985. Ferbar never resumed participation in the Fund.
On December 12, 1986, after concluding that Ferbar had completely withdrawn from the Fund, the trustees sent a letter to the company demanding payment of its withdrawal liability. The Fund calculated Ferbar’s total liability as $45,570.80 and informed the company that it had two options: pay the entire liability as a lump sum within 60 days of receiving the letter, or pay $345.50 per month for 240 months, beginning February 1, 1987. Ferbar asked the trustees to review their decision pursuant to 29 U. S. C. § 1399(b)(2)(B), but received no response explicitly directed to that request. On July 8,1987, Ferbar filed a notice of initiation of arbitration. Arbitration proceedings have not yet taken place.
Despite the statutory "pay now, dispute later” provisions, Ferbar has made no payments toward its withdrawal liability. On April 14, 1987, the Fund warned Ferbar that the company was delinquent and would be in default if it failed *199 to cure the delinquency within 60 days. On February 9, 1993, the Fund filed this action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In its complaint, App. 6-12, the Fund sought to recover Ferbar’s entire $45,570.80 withdrawal liability. In the alternative, it sought the $25,375.00 that had come due prior to the filing of the suit plus an injunction requiring Ferbar to make each future payment when due. The complaint was filed nearly eight years after Ferbar completely withdrew from the Fund in March 1985, six years and eight days after Ferbar missed its first scheduled payment on February 1, 1987, and less than six years after Ferbar missed the second and succeeding payments.
The District Court granted summary judgment to Ferbar on statute of limitations grounds. App. to Pet. for Cert. 6a-19a. It relied on two alternative rationales. First, the court concluded that 29 U. S. C. § 1451(f )(2)’s three-year “discovery” rule controlled. The Fund’s action was therefore time barred, the District Court held, because it was filed well more than three years after the Fund had become aware of Ferbar’s delinquency. Second, assuming that § 1451(f)(l)’s six-year “accrual” rule applied, the District Court believed the Fund’s .action nonetheless time barred. In the court’s view, the six-year period began to run on Ferbar’s entire $45,570.80 liability on February 1, 1987, the date the company missed its first $345.50 payment. On that view, the action was filed eight days too late.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed, but on different reasoning.
As Judge the Ninth Circuit’s decision conflicts with an earlier decision of the District of Columbia Circuit,
Joyce
v.
Clyde Sandoz Masonry,
h-i
The Court of Appeals held that the statute of limitations on a pension plan’s action to recover unpaid withdrawal liability runs from the date the employer withdraws from the plan! On that view, the limitations period commences at a time when the plan could not yet file suit. Such a result is inconsistent with basic limitations principles, and we reject it. A plan cannot maintain an action until the employer *201 misses a.scheduled withdrawal liability payment. The statute of. limitations does not begin to run until that time.
A
By its terms, the MPPAA’s six-year statute of limitations runs from “the date on which the cause of action arose.” 29 U. S. C. § 1451(f)(1). This language, as we comprehend it, incorporates the standard rule that the limitations period commences when the plaintiff has “a complete and present cause of action.”
Rawlings
v.
Ray,
The date of withdrawal cannot start the statute of limitations clock, because the MPPAA affords a plan no basis to obtain relief against an employer on that date. The plan could not sue to undo the withdrawal, for an employer does not viólate the MPPAA simply by exiting the plan. The Act takes as a given that employers may withdraw. Instead of prohibiting employers from leaving their plans, Congress imposed a scheme of mandatory payments designed to discourage withdrawals
ex ante
and cushion their impact
ex post.
See
Milwaukee Brewery Workers’ Pension Plan,
Any pension plan liability, commenced on the date of withdrawal, would be premature. As we have previously explained, “the statute makes clear that the withdrawing employer owes nothing until its plan demands payment.”
Milwaukee Brewery Workers’ Pension Plan,
In sum, we hold that the MPPAA does not give a pension plan any claim for relief against an employer on the date of withdrawal. The plan’s interest in receiving withdrawal liability does not ripen into a cause of action triggering the limitations period until two events transpire. First, the trustees must calculate the debt, set a schedule of installments, and demand payment pursuant to § 1399(b)(1). Second, the employer must default on an installment dub and payable under the trustees’ schedule. Only then has the employer violated an obligation owed the plan under " the Act.
B
In reaching our conclusion, we have not overlooked arguments made by Ferbar or invoked by the Ninth Circuit. We set out those arguments here and our reasons for rejecting them.
Maintaining that a cause of action arises on the date of withdrawal, Ferbar relies on language in 29 U. S. C. *203 § 1451(a)(1). That provision empowers a "plan fiduciary, employer, plan participant, or beneficiary, who is adversely affected by the act or omission of any party under this subtitle with respect to a multiemployer plan," to “bring an action for appropriate legal or equitable relief, or both.” Ferbar asserts that a multiemployer plan is “adversely affected” whenever an employer withdraws. Accordingly, Ferbar urges, the plan’s right of action is complete at the time of withdrawal.
Although the payment of withdrawal liability will offset the harmful impact of a participant’s exit, we do not doubt that pension plans are adversely affected as a practical matter when an employer withdraws. But Ferbar’s argument is off the mark. As the Fund points out, § 1451(a)(1) does not “provide a cause of action in the air for any adverse effect on multiemployer pension funds.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 2.
Section 1451 prescribes a variety of procedures for the governance of civil actions brought to enforce the MPPAA. See, e. g., 29 U. S. C. § 1451(c) (jurisdiction of federal and state courts), § 1451(d) (venue and service of process), § 1451(e) (costs and expenses). Subsection (a), headed “[plersons entitled to maintain actions,” answers only a “standing” question — who may sue for a violation of the obligations established by the Act’s substantive provisions. Subsection (a)(1) extends judicial remedies for violation of the MPPAA to a broad range of plaintiffs — any “plan fiduciary, employer, plan participant, or beneficiary, who is adversely affected.” But that provision does not make an “adverse effect” unlawful per se, any more than does § 10(a) of the Administrative Procedure Act, which similarly empowers “adversely affected” persons to invoke judicial remedies. 3 We see nothing in § 1451(a)(1) to justify the Court of Appeals’ *204 holding that the statute of limitations begins to run on the date of withdrawal.
In adopting the date-of-withdrawal rule in
Thibodo
and applying it here, the Ninth Circuit did not rely on Ferbar’s interpretation of § 1451(a)(1). Instead, the Court of Appeals rested its holding on two grounds, one based on statutory interpretation, the other on policy considerations. As to statutory interpretation, the court reasoned that a missed-payment approach would render § 1451(f)(2)’s three-year discovery rule superfluous, because a pension plan will inevitably learn of the missed payment just around the time it occurs; hence, § 1451(f)(1)’s six-year accrual rule would always provide "the later of” the two limitations periods. See
Thibodo,
We find this argument infirm. Section tations periods govern much more than withdrawal liability; they apply to any “action under this section.” 29 U. S. C. § 1451(f). Such actions can involve “matters far beyond collection of withdrawal liability,” including “transfers of plan assets, reorganizations of plans, and benefits after termination of plans,” all of which may involve matters not discovered until well after the cause of action accrues.
Joyce,
The Court of Appeals’ policy argument no The court reasoned that a rule pegging the statute to the schedule set by the plan’s trustees would “improperly plae[e] the running of the limitations period in the control of the plaintiff.”
Thibodo,
Furthermore, we agree with the D. C. Gireuit that “significant incentives . . . will, in the usual case, induce plan sponsors to act promptly to calculate, schedule, and demand payment of withdrawal liability.”
Joyce,
*206 i — i HH 1 — i
Although we have rejected the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the limitations period commenced on the date of withdrawal, that holding alone does not resolve the limitations issue in this case. The Fund filed its complaint on February 9, 1993. That date was more than six years after Ferbar missed its first payment (which the Fund had set for February 1, 1987), but within six years of the dates scheduled for the second and succeeding payments. Because suit was instituted more than six years after the due date of the first payment, the District Court alternatively held that the action was time barred in its entirety. See supra, at 199.
The District Court’s in the Circuits. The Seventh Circuit has held, in line with the District Court’s view here, that the statute of limitations on the entire withdrawal liability begins to run when the employer misses its first scheduled installment. Under the rule advanced by the Seventh Circuit, a plan that sues too late to recover the first payment forfeits the right to recover any of the outstanding withdrawal liability.
Navco,
A
In briefing on the merits — but not in its petition for certio-rari — the Fund argued that we need not resolve the question that has divided the Third and Seventh Circuits. We can *207 avoid that issue, the Fund submits, because its action was timely even as to the first payment. The Fund relies on 29 U. S. C. § 1399(c)(2), whieh provides: ‘Withdrawal liability shall be payable in accordance with the schedule set forth by the plan sponsor .. . beginning no later than 60 days after the date of the demand....” The Fund reads this provision as extending Ferbar’s time to make its first payment until February 10,1987 — 60 days after the Fund sent the company a letter demanding the withdrawal liability. Brief for Petitioner 35; see Reply Brief for Petitioner 16. At oral argument, the Fund further suggested that the terms of the December 12, 1986, demand letter, which purported to allow Ferbar 60 days from the letter’s receipt to prepay the entire liability, independently warrant the same result. Tr. of Oral Arg. 12,53. The Fund made both of these arguments in the Court of Appeals. See Brief for Appellant in No. 94-15976 (CA9), p. 11.
We are satisfied, however, that the Fund has waived any right to seek the first payment here. In its petition for cer-tiorari, the Fund did not argue that its action was timely as to that installment. To the contrary, it stated: “On the facts of this case, the difference between the Third and Seventh Circuit positions is determinative,” for “[u]nder the Seventh Circuit’s
Navco
interpretation of the statute, the suit is barred (as the District Court in this case alternatively held).” Pet. for Cert. 15-16. These representations would be inaccurate if, as the Fund now argues, the action to recover the first installment was in any event timely. Having urged that we grant certiorari to resolve not only the statute of limitations triggering date, but also the ultimately “determinative” question that divided the Third and Seventh Circuits, the Fund is not positioned to revive its claim for the first $345.50 payment. Cf.
Taylor
v.
Freeland & Kronz,
B
A withdrawing employer’s basic responsibility under the MPPAA is to make each withdrawal liability payment when due. The Act thus establishes an installment obligation. Just as a pension plan cannot sue to recover
any
withdrawal liability until the employer misses a scheduled payment, so too must the plan generally wait until the employer misses a particular payment before suing to collect
that payment.
As we have explained, a statute of limitations ordinarily does not begin to run until the plaintiff could sue to enforce the obligation at issue. We therefore agree with the Third Circuit that “a new cause of action,” carrying its own limitations period, “arises from the date each payment is missed.”
Kahle Engineering Corp.,
The general rule applies even though a plan has the option to accelerate and collect the entire debt if the employer defaults. See 29 U. S. C. § 1399(e)(5). For limitations purposes, we cannot assume that a default will or should invariably lead to acceleration, for the statutory acceleration provision is by its terms permissive. See
ibid.
(“In the event of a default, a plan sponsor
may
require immediate payment . . . .”) (emphasis added). Trustees confronting a delinquent employer may accelerate if they decide such a course is in the best interests of the plan, but they need not do so to preserve the plan’s right to recover future payments. Cf.
Kahle Engineering Corp.,
Rejecting the approach we now endorse, the Seventh Circuit regarded the foregoing principles as controlling contractual obligations only. Where “the employer did not assent to a longer period for payment and suit,” that court concluded, a pension fund has “only one claim against the employer” — “the amount of withdrawal liability. Although a fund may permit an employer to amortize this sum over 20 years ... the whole amount is presumptively due at the outset.”
Navco,
We cannot agree that the rule that each missed payment carries its own limitations period turns on the origin — contractual or otherwise — of an installment obligation. Courts have repeatedly applied the rule in actions to collect on installment judgments, even though such obligations obviously *210 are not contractual. 6 Nor can we agree that an installment obligation arises only on the employer’s assent. The MPPAA itself creates such an obligation. Unless the employer prepays, the Act requires it, like any other installment debtor, to make payments when due. Like the typical installment creditor, the plan has no right, absent default and acceleration, to sue to collect payments before they are due, and it has no obligation to accelerate on default. The employer and the plan are thus in the same position as parties to an ordinary installment transaction. We see no reason to apply a different limitations rule.
Our holding does not, as the Seventh Circuit believed, “[t]ur[n] six years into twenty-six.”
Navco,
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Notes
An “obligation to contribute” arises from either a collective-bargaining agreement or more general labor-law prescriptions. See 29 U. S. C. § 1892(a). The statute applies special definitions of “complete withdrawal” to particular industries. See, e. g., §§ 1388(b), (c). The statute also imposes liability for “partial withdrawal” in some circumstances. §§ 1385, 1386.
See 29 U. S. C. § 1399(c)(2) (“Withdrawal liability shall be payable in accordance with the schedule set forth by the plan sponsor ... no later than 60 days after the date of the demand notwithstanding any request for review or appeal of determinations of the amount of such liability or of the schedule.”); § 1401(d) (employer must make payments according to the plan’s schedule “until the arbitrator issues a final decision with respect to the determination submitted for arbitration”).
See 5 U. S. C. § 702 (“A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof”).
See 29 U. S. C. § 1399(a) (employer must furnish requested information to the plan sponsor within 30 days); § 1399(b)(2)(A) (employer may seek reconsideration of withdrawal liability assessment within 90 days); § 1399(c)(2) (withdrawal liability shall be payable according to the plan sponsor’s schedule, beginning no later than 60 days after the date of the demand); § 1401(a)(1) (either party may request arbitration within the earlier of 60 days after the plan responds to the employer’s request for reconsideration or 180 days after the employer sought reconsideration).
See
Board of Trustees of Dist. 15 Machinists’ Pension Fund
v.
Kahle Engineering Corp.,
See
Kuhn
v.
Kuhn,