The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has published its Annual Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment in the Federal Register, which sets the amount of civil penalties for violating laws concerning the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) statute, and the provision of Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC). These adjustments apply Read More

Bank of America has become the latest employer to face a class action lawsuit alleging misuse of forfeited 401(k) funds. Retirement plan participants claim that the bank breached its fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by improperly benefiting from 401(k) matching funds that employees forfeited when they left the company. The case is Becerra v. Bank of America Corp., which was Read More

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a 401(k)-plan mismanagement suit brought by plan participants in favor of Home Depot. The ruling affirmed a Georgia federal court’s grant of summary judgment in the suit, in which plan participants claimed that the home improvement retailer violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in charging Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that vacated critical portions of the surprise billing independent dispute resolution (IDR) provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA, 2021). The case is Texas Med. Ass’n v. HHS, 2024 WL 3633795 (5th Cir. 2024). Relying on the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright, the Fifth Circuit held that the CAA, Read More

Recent lawsuits have emphasized that employers who sponsor employee benefit plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) are fiduciaries. This fiduciary duty means that employers owe an increased duty of care to the plans and their beneficiaries. As a result, employers should take certain precautions to avoid lawsuits based on a breach of their fiduciary duty. Retirement Plans In recent Read More

A Texas federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) new fiduciary rule, which classifies more retirement advisors as fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The DOL’s rule was set to go into effect on September 23, 2024, until the Court issued its order in Federation of Americans for Consumer Choice, et al. v. Department of Read More

U.S. House Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY) recently proposed during a House Oversight Committee Meeting that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) should be health plan fiduciaries. As fiduciaries under federal law, PBMs would have to make decisions that lower health plan costs and benefit patients. According to Langworthy, the lack of a fiduciary duty to health plans is one reason PBMs charge excessive fees, push more Read More

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently published final regulations that update the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules for qualified plans, including 401(k) plans. The final regulations implement changes made by the SECURE and SECURE 2.0 Acts and generally follow the proposed rules with a few modifications. Furthermore, the IRS published proposed regulations that address other RMD issues under the Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s certification of a class of more than 290,000 workers against several benefits administration companies. However, the Court also ruled that this Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) suit, in which workers allege mismanagement of their fringe benefits, should proceed as an opt-out rather than a mandatory class action. The case is Read More

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently filed a reply brief in a lawsuit brought by insurance industry groups seeking to block new regulations that expand the definition of fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In its brief, the DOL asked the Court to deny a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the agency from implementing and enforcing the new regulations. The Read More