DE Under 3: Court Held That Workday Was an “Agent” to Employers Licensing its AI Applicant Screening Tools
Business Associates Here, There, and Everywhere: When Does Your Service Provider Really Need to Sign a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement?
In House Counsel: How To Measure the Effectiveness of Your Staffing Strategy
Sitting with the C-Suite: Identifying Opportunities to Leverage Human Capital
The CCPA for the Land Title Industry: Service Providers and Sale of Data Under the CCPA
Podcast - Risk Management: Troubleshooting & Problem Solving
Cybersecurity in the investment management industry
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 157-Training of Third Parties Under the FCPA
Special Report: The Hot-ish Swag at LegalTech New York 2015
As a plan fiduciary, I still can’t believe it. A Third Party Administrator (TPA) we terminated was trying to hold us up for valuations and a Form 5500 we paid for, as part of, annual administration. It was $80,000....more
In many situations, practitioners recommend establishing a fiduciary committee to oversee ERISA-covered employee benefit plans. There are several reasons for this, including providing a well-defined process for...more
As we bid farewell to 2024 and look ahead to the new year, we reflect on the many evolving compliance obligations that health and welfare plan sponsors tackle each year. Although this list is by no means exhaustive, it...more
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
Attorneys have a bad reputation and a lot of times, it’s warranted. I jokingly said I knew why people hated lawyers just by going to law school....more
The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued new guidance on best practices for maintaining cybersecurity in connection with ERISA plans (the Guidance). The Guidance, which is intended for sponsors, fiduciaries, record...more
To increase protections for the estimated $9.3 trillion in American retirement assets, the Department of Labor (DOL) has begun a new cybersecurity audit initiative for retirement plans. After providing its first set of...more
For the first time, the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has released cybersecurity guidance aimed at protecting workers' retirement benefits. The guidance, which was released...more
In a June 14, 2021 information letter, the US Department of Labor (DOL) opined that a claimant appealing an adverse benefit determination under a plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended...more
It’s been, as the song goes, a long, long time coming. In April, the Department of Labor issued its first ever formal cybersecurity guidance for retirement plan sponsors and retirement plan fiduciaries, and for the service...more
The Department of Labor recently issued cybersecurity guidance to retirement plans. The department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued guidance in three areas: (1) hiring and working with vendors and...more
Retirement plans are increasingly subject to cybersecurity issues, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is taking notice. On April 14, 2021, the DOL published cybersecurity guidance “for plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries,...more
On April 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released three-part guidance on cybersecurity issues for employee benefit plans, marking its first significant commentary on the issue since its comprehensive but...more
As of 2018, the DOL estimates that there are 34 million defined benefit (DB) plan participants in private pension plans and 106 million defined contribution (DC) plan participants with combined assets of $9.3 trillion....more
As part of its efforts to protect an estimated $9.3 trillion in retirement plan assets from increasing “internal and external cybersecurity threats,” the Department of Labor (DOL) has issued its first guidance ever concerning...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA), 2021, enacted late in 2020, imposes a new requirement on group health plans to ensure compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). Unlike many of the...more
Best Practices: Lessons Learned from Litigation (#2)—the Vanderbilt Case - I am writing two series of articles that together are called “The Bests.” One is about Best Practices for Plan Sponsors, while the other is about...more
When I first started in the 401(k) business, investment selection by participants was still being predominantly done by paper and phone. The first websites I encountered dealing with 401(k) plans gave the participant their...more
The Bottom Line For Retirement Plan Providers. More plan assets for your clients is a good thing for many reasons. When I had the idea of starting a National ERISA practice 10 years ago, I knew I would have a tough time...more
It seems like every week, there is another major lawsuit against a plan sponsor and one of their service providers. Allegations of impropriety are just allegations until decided by a trier of fact of whether they are...more
How Retirement Plan Providers Can Deal With The Fiduciary Rule Change. Adapt to this change. At its prime, Blockbuster Video had 9,000 stores and was actually bought by Viacom in 1994 for $8.4 billion. Then some...more
The Future Is Now For 401(k) Plan Sponsors. The future is here. When I was the head ERISA attorney at a New York based third party administrator (TPA), I left because I saw the future of the retirement plan...more
I always get the call from my third party administrator (TPA) and financial advisory clients concerning the same topic. The topic is how it’s still difficult to get across with potential plan sponsor clients on the urgency to...more
How to Communicate and Understand Retirement Plan Sponsors. There is a method to it. Being a retirement plan provider isn't just about selling services, it's really about selling yourself and you can't sell yourself...more
The New Fiduciary Rule: What It Means To Plan Sponsors - Bottom line: what does it mean? More than a dozen years ago, there was a medical report that dental plaque could cause heart disease. I thought it was some...more