Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in a pending ERISA class action lawsuit to include state law claims by the American Medical Association (AMA), the Medical Society of New Jersey, and the Washington State Medical Association. The original individual plaintiffs were participants in CIGNA-administered health plans and received medical care from physicians in the MultiPlan network.  Physicians in the MultiPlan Read More

The DOL, HHS, and IRS have finalized portions of the regulations concerning the independent dispute resolution (IDR) process of the No Surprises Act. The agencies also have provided a fact sheet summarizing the finalized regulations. Congress enacted the No Surprises Act as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA) to address various issues involving surprise medical billing. The major aim of the Read More

The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed individual exemptions to prohibited transaction restrictions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The proposed transaction exemptions would cover about $600 million in payments made by 11 benefit pension plans, sponsored by independent licensees of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association Read More

A judge in a Massachusetts federal court has dismissed four of the nine claims in a 2021 wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former employee against a lighting company and selected company employees. Among the claims that the judge dismissed were Ahmed Eissa’s allegations that Ledvance LLC discriminated against him based on his sex and ethnicity when they terminated him after he took parental leave for the birth Read More

McDonald’s has settled a class action lawsuit for $156,783.00 over allegations that it failed to provide former employees with sufficient notice of continued health insurance coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). Class members consist of 9,000 former employees, all of whom received the deficient COBRA notices between December 15, 2017, and February 9, 2021, and did not opt to Read More

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision of a Texas federal court, finding that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had acted arbitrarily in finding a company's health insurance plan to be exempt from ERISA. The case is Data Marketing Partnership v. LABR, case number 20-11179 (August 17, 2022).  Data Marketing Partnership (“Data Marketing”) had challenged a DOL advisory opinion that its Read More

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued a proposal in July 2022 to tighten the rules allowing asset managers to oversee retirement plans. More specifically, the proposal would make changes to the Qualified Professional Asset Manager (QPAM) exemption to prohibited transactions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The QPAM exemption allows Read More

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finalized the executive compensation or “pay-versus-performance” rule that Congress first directed it to create in 2010 when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act. The rule, designed to provide more information to investors about how companies calculate pay for CEOs and other top executives, requires companies to justify executive pay to shareholders by comparing it to the Read More

ERISA class action lawsuits, alleging that plans have charged excessive fees or provided poorly performing investment selections in retirement plans, have continued in recent months. The U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2022 ruling in Hughes v. Northwestern University has not stopped the deluge of these filings, even as summer rulings in the Sixth Circuit have potentially narrowed the pleading standards for these types Read More

Fifth Circuit Affirms Texas Federal Court’s Injunction in Abortion/Transgender Healthcare Dispute In Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra, case number 21-11174, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a Texas federal court judge’s permanent injunction, enjoining the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing certain requirements under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Read More