As costly class action retirement plan litigation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) proliferates, mandatory individual arbitration has become an increasingly appealing alternative for certain benefit...more
Group health plans and insurers have been required since 2008 to ensure that any “nonquantitative treatment limitations” (NQTLs) imposed on mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits are comparable and no more...more
5/19/2021
/ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Compliance ,
Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Employer Group Health Plans ,
IRS ,
Mental Health ,
Noncompliance ,
NQTLs ,
State Legislatures ,
State Regulators ,
Substance Abuse
The Department of Labor (DOL) has released a short statement announcing that it will not enforce the final rule on “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments” that it published on November 13, 2020. The statement also...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a final rule to revise its existing rule regarding financial factors in selecting plan investments. We discussed the proposed rule in an earlier article, and this article provides a...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a notice of a proposed class exemption from certain prohibited transaction restrictions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)...more
The Department of Labor (DOL), joined and coordinated in part by the Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, and Department of Health and Human Services, has released several documents providing deadline extensions...more
The President recently signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or “CARES Act.” The CARES Act is primarily a stimulus package that addresses the current coronavirus crisis, and it includes...more
Last year, in Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a special type of “church plan,” intended to be exempt from Title I of ERISA and many Internal Revenue Code requirements, does not...more
9/14/2018
/ Benefit Plan Sponsors ,
Church Plans ,
Churches ,
Defined Benefit Plans ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
IRS ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Religious Institutions ,
Tax Exemptions
On June 21, 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mandate vacating the controversial fiduciary rule issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in 2016. The mandate follows the court’s opinion issued on March 15,...more
6/27/2018
/ Appeals ,
Best Interest Contract Exemptions ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Fiduciary Rule ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Individual Retirement Account (IRA) ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Management ,
Judicial Mandates ,
Retirement Funds ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Transactions ,
Vacated
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that employee benefit plans sponsored by certain church-affiliated organizations do not have to be established by a church to be considered a “church plan,” which is exempt...more
With relatively few exceptions, administrators of employee benefit plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) have enjoyed success enforcing forum selection clauses in cases across the country. As...more
Until recently, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Labor (DOL), and federal courts seemed to agree that a retirement plan established and maintained by a church-affiliated organization generally qualified...more