Since 1996, the US Department of Labor granted more than 1,200 individual exemptions from the ERISA prohibited transaction rules.

One of the distinctive features of ERISA is its prohibition, in ERISA section 406 as a matter of positive law and Internal Revenue Code section 4975 through an excise tax regime, of (i) a wide range of specified transactions between a covered ERISA plan or IRA and a far-reaching group of ostensible “insiders” to those arrangements (“parties in interest” or “disqualified persons” in the language of ERISA and the Code, respectively), and on (ii) “fiduciaries” for those arrangements acting with a self-interest, conflicted interest or in receipt of third-party compensation.