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
Certain transactions between employee benefit plans and “parties in interest” are prohibited under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA). ...more
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
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
On April 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) issued its first cybersecurity best practices guidance for retirement plans. The EBSA guidance was highly...more
A little more than three years ago, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) posted cybersecurity guidance on its website for ERISA plan fiduciaries. That guidance extended only to ERISA-covered retirement plans, despite health and...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
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
Cryptocurrency owners must face death—be it their own, or that of anyone else with custody of the owner’s cryptocurrency or other digital assets. We received a stark reminder of this when the Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX...more
As the rules governing retirement and health plans grow more complex, employers often need professional help in order to keep up with the day-to-day management of the employee benefit plans they sponsor. From third-party...more
We are thrilled to bring you the third installment of Stinson Leonard Street's Emerging Trends newsletter. We are proud of the depth and breadth of experience and knowledge across our firm's 13 offices nationwide and are...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
Non-Enforcement - Mutual Fund Directors Must Be Vigilant in Addressing Risks - In remarks to the Mutual Fund Directors Forum, SEC Chair Mary Jo White outlined some of the risks and challenges that mutual fund...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
I talk to a lot of advisors and I have many advisor clients around the country and one of the things that I keep on hearing is that even with fee disclosure regulations almost 4 years later, it is still difficult to get...more
The Struggles Of Being A Retirement Plan Provider And How To Manage It. What you have to deal with. Any good retirement plan financial advisor will tell you that relationships in the retirement plan business mean...more
On April 6, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor (Department) issued its final rule defining who is a fiduciary of an employee benefit plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) as a result of giving...more
John Carnevale, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sentinel Benefits, a Massachusetts and New York based producing third party administrator (TPA), died of a heart attack suddenly last weekend. I never met...more
What Plan Sponsors Need to Know Now - On April 5, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor released a new definition of what constitutes a fiduciary to a retirement plan. While the new guidance clarified that certain...more
Things About Plan Providers That Shouldn't Impress Plan Sponsors. Don't get bamboozled. There are certain things in life we really should be impressed by, but we always end up being impressed by the wrong...more
The Complete And Total Worthlessness Of The 401(k) Fiduciary Warranty - I am a firm believer in the idea that what you see is what you should get. If you’re promised the moon, anything short of it is wrong. Some of the...more
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a retirement plan’s claims against a company with whom the plan had contracted to provide the plan’s investment options. The holding in McCaffree...more
Continuing a trend in other Circuits, the Eighth Circuit held that a service provider that was contracted to provide the 401(k) plan’s investment options does not act as an ERISA fiduciary when, consistent with the terms of a...more