PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Can Employers Impose a Health Insurance Surcharge on Plan Participants Not Vaccinated for COVID-19?
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues. Parts 2,...more
Chavez v. Plan Benefit Services, Inc., 108 F.4th 297 (5th Cir. 2024), began when three employees of a single employer sued the service providers of their health and welfare benefit plan for allegedly charging excessive fees...more
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas issued its written decision in Shipp v. Central States Manufacturing, Inc. on July 5, 2024, declining to dismiss the case against Central States Manufacturing Inc....more
Multi-employer plan participants involved in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) class action lawsuit against Horizon Actuarial Services LLC (Horizon), a national retirement services firm, have entered...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 140 S Ct. 1615 (2020), the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, held that participants in an ERISA defined benefit pension plan did not have standing under...more
A U.S. District Court judge threw out a case against Microsoft which claimed that the BlackRock LifePath Index Funds suite of target-date funds was an imprudent investment choice for their plan participants....more
Given the current market volatility, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) concerns related to the addition of cryptocurrencies in qualified retirement plans seems prescient. In Compliance Assistance Release No. 2022-01, the...more
In Hawkins, et al. v. Cintas Corp., No. 21-3156, __ F.4d __ (2022), plaintiffs brought a class action pursuant to Section 502(a)(2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), alleging that their former employer...more
On March 10, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Compliance Assistance Release No. 2022-01 (the “Release”, available here) which cautions ERISA plan fiduciaries to exercise “extreme care” before they consider...more
Key Takeaways - ..Mishandling of premiums can lead to breach of fiduciary duty claims under ERISA against employers. ..Information beyond what is required to be disclosed by ERISA may need to be provided by plan...more
A client recently reviewed a census of participants in its deferred compensation plan and found that the covered group amounted to nearly 15% of its total workforce. Mindful of the need to limit the number of participants in...more
Cryptocurrencies and digital assets—such as bitcoin, ether and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—have become some of the hottest investment products in recent years. The growing interest has inevitably led to retirement plan...more
On January 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an important decision affecting plan fiduciaries who select investment options available to participants in a self-directed employee retirement plan (such as a 401(k)...more
On January 24, 2022, in a rare, unanimous 8-0 decision (Justice Barrett recused herself from the case), the Supreme Court of the United States (the “Supreme Court”) vacated a Seventh Circuit affirmation of the dismissal of...more
In Hughes v. Northwestern University, current and former participants in Northwestern University's defined-contribution retirement plans filed litigation on behalf of the plans' participants asserting that the University, its...more
Just this month, the Supreme Court issued its much anticipated decision in Northwestern University, the first time the Court has been called upon to examine a lawsuit alleging that a 401(k) plan’s investment and fees were...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Hughes v. Northwestern University, in which the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected claims that the fiduciaries of two defined contribution retirement plans at...more
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
The Supreme Court’s January 24, 2022 decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, has caused alarm in some corners, with panicked predictions of a proliferation of ERISA suits alleging that defined contribution plans...more
On Jan. 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision, overturning the Seventh Circuit’s dismissal of participants’ claims that fiduciaries breached their duty of prudence – sending the case back to the...more
On Jan. 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in Hughes v. Northwestern University, and remanded the case for further consideration, bringing new life to current...more
On Monday, Jan. 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision dealing with defined contribution retirement plans. These plans, which include 401(k) plans, provide an array of investment choices from which...more
In the first decision since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hughes v. Northwestern Univ., No. 19-1401, 595 U.S. ___ (U.S. Jan. 24, 2022), a Georgia federal district court held in favor of plaintiffs and declined to dismiss...more
KEY TAKEAWAYS - ..Plan fiduciaries have a duty of prudence to independently evaluate on an ongoing basis investments offered in a plan’s menu of options and remove any imprudent ones. ..Plan participants’ ultimate...more
On January 24, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, ruled in Hughes v. Northwestern University that offering an array of allegedly prudent investment choices within the plan does not serve as a categorial defense...more