News & Analysis as of

Fiduciary Duty Health and Welfare Plans

Verrill

Prepare for Cooler Weather, Annual Enrollment, and 2025

Verrill on

Summer is ending and fall is rapidly approaching. For employee benefit professionals with calendar-year health and welfare benefit plans that means preparing for annual enrollment and year-end compliance requirements. This...more

Jackson Lewis P.C.

Health Plan Hygiene Part 2: ERISA Fiduciaries – That May Mean You!

Jackson Lewis P.C. on

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) regulates most private employee benefit retirement and welfare plans. This statute’s purview is vast; it governs employer-sponsored defined benefit and defined...more

Verrill

Health and Welfare Benefit Plan Fiduciary Governance in the Wake of the Johnson & Johnson Lawsuit

Verrill on

For the past few years, we have encouraged plan sponsors to focus on matters of fiduciary governance for their health and welfare benefit plans (see our 2021 blog post). Yet many plan sponsors overlook the fact that the...more

Bass, Berry & Sims PLC

Welfare Plan Class Action Litigation Underscores Importance of Minding Your Fiduciary Duties

Bass, Berry & Sims PLC on

As mentioned in our recent blog post, the recently filed class action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson (Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson et. al., D.N.J., No. 1:24-cv-00671 (Feb. 5, 2024)) over alleged excessive prescription...more

Jackson Lewis P.C.

Don’t Set It & Forget It: Keeping up Your Fiduciary Committee

Jackson Lewis P.C. on

It’s hard to believe that 2024 is well underway! That means it’s a perfect time to think about an issue that might get lost in the summertime and (dare I already say) year-end shuffles: fiduciary committees. ERISA imposes...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Drugmaker Sued for…Overpaying for Drugs? Lawsuit Ushers in Expected Wave of Welfare Fiduciary Litigation

Seyfarth Shaw LLP on

The first complaint was filed in what is expected to be a wave of litigation alleging breach of fiduciary duty in selecting and monitoring welfare plan vendors. While the facts of this particular case may make it somewhat...more

Holland & Hart - The Benefits Dial

The Time Has Come, A Fact’s A Fact: Consider Adding a Welfare Plan Committee

The time may have come to add a welfare plan committee to your company’s governance of employee benefit plans. New legal obligations and other developments impose fiduciary risks for welfare plans similar to what already...more

Morgan Lewis - ML Benefits

ERISA Cybersecurity Compliance: SEC Proposed Rule May Provide Metrics for Evaluating Certain SEC-Regulated Plan Service Providers

In 2021, the US Department of Labor (DOL) issued cybersecurity guidance (the DOL Guidance) that sets out the DOL’s views on what processes fiduciaries of benefit plans regulated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act...more

Morgan Lewis - ML Benefits

DOL Continues Active ERISA Enforcement and Focus on Cybersecurity Including Health and Welfare Plans

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the US Department of Labor (DOL) has continued to be active in civil and criminal enforcement investigations of ERISA’s fiduciary duties. This blog post details two...more

Holland & Hart - The Benefits Dial

What Happens in a Small Town Stays in a Small Town … Until the DOL Doubles Down on Mental Health Parity Compliance

The Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Treasury (collectively, the Departments) recently issued their joint report to Congress regarding their Mental Health...more

Morgan Lewis - ML Benefits

EBSA Enforcement Statistics for FY 2021: Growing Focus on Service Providers, Health & Welfare Plans

At the end of each fiscal year, the US Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) compiles the monetary results it obtained through various initiatives meant to ensure compliance with the...more

Verrill

Supreme Court will Hear Northwestern University 403(b) Plan Excessive Fee Case

Verrill on

The United States Supreme Court will weigh in on the spate of recent lawsuits filed against colleges and universities related to the schools’ retirement plans. The Court has granted a request for review from participants in...more

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

The DOL Provides Practical Guidance on the Application of PTE 2020-02

As described in our recent blog posts, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently issued guidance in the form of FAQs to address questions concerning the practical application of PTE 2020-02, Improving Investment Advice for...more

Verrill

Establish an Administrative Committee for Your ERISA Health and Welfare Benefit Plans

Verrill on

The fiduciary standards of ERISA apply to all employee benefit plans that are subject to Title I of ERISA. The duty of loyalty, the duty of prudence, and the duty to administer a plan in accordance with its written terms...more

Epstein Becker & Green

[Webinar] Hot Topics and Trends in Employee Benefits for 2021 - December 3rd, 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm ET

Epstein Becker & Green on

Please join us for our live Hot Topics and Trends in Employee Benefits for 2021 webinar on Thursday, December 3, 2020. Attorneys from our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation practice will provide insights on current...more

Troutman Pepper

COVID-19 Resource Guide for Human Resources Professionals: Employee Benefits Considerations for Reopening in 2020

Troutman Pepper on

COVID-19 continues to throw us curveballs. While some states that were continuing on their path to recovery are having to backtrack, others have managed to temporarily halt the progression of COVID-19 and are proceeding as...more

UB Greensfelder LLP

[Webinar] Benefit Plan Changes in Light of COVID-19 - June 11th, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT

UB Greensfelder LLP on

The legislative and regulatory changes for employee benefit plans in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic are coming in almost daily, which can make it difficult for employers to determine where to start in addressing these...more

Groom Law Group, Chartered

IRS Proposes Rules on UBIT Changes Affecting Benefit Plan Investors

A pension or welfare plan’s investment in a private equity or real estate partnership, among other investment funds, may give rise to “unrelated business income tax” (“UBIT”)....more

Morgan Lewis

COVID-19: Agencies Issue Disaster Relief for Welfare Plans

Morgan Lewis on

The US Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (DOL) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance last week providing deadline and other relief affecting welfare plans and their sponsors and...more

Groom Law Group, Chartered

SECURE Act and Spending Bills – Impact on Plan Sponsors

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (the “SECURE Act”), the largest package of retirement system reforms in over a decade, was enacted on December 20, 2019.  Many of the provisions in the...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Federal Court Certifies Class in Multiple-Plan ERISA Challenge to Health-Plan and Retirement-Plan Fees

A Texas federal court certified a class in an ERISA action brought by participants in one plan, but alleging class claims on behalf of participants in many different plans sponsored by different, unaffiliated employers. See...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

District Court in California Denies Motion to Dismiss, Finds an Independent Review Organization to Be a Functional Fiduciary Under...

In Josef K. v. California Physicians’ Service, No. 18-cv-06385-YGR (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, June 3, 2019), Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers concluded that an independent medical review (IMR)...more

Jackson Walker

ERISA Alert: An Update on Health and Welfare and Retirement Plans

Jackson Walker on

Health and Welfare Plan Update - It is 9:00 p.m., do you know where your health plan data is? As IT systems continue to expand, and data is accessed, moved and stored in many new and different ways, the Office for Civil...more

McDermott Will & Emery

ERISA Health Plan Fiduciaries Defeat DOL’s Excessive Fee Claims

McDermott Will & Emery on

In one of the first ERISA cases to address claims against fiduciaries for excessive health plan fees, the court entered judgment in favor of the defendants on all counts. The decision addresses health plan fiduciary standards...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Vindication! Fifth Circuit Reverses Notorious District Court Health Care Fraud Decision

Seyfarth Shaw LLP on

Seyfarth Synopsis: In a major victory for ERISA plans and other payors, the Fifth Circuit recently overturned a district court’s notorious decision in favor of a healthcare provider and reinstated a plan administrator’s...more

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