Various federal appellate courts have considered cases in which employers attempt to prevent ERISA class action lawsuits by including mandatory arbitration requirements into their plan documents. Due to the varying outcomes of these cases, this issue is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court for resolution.  In September 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the order of the U.S. District Read More

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (“SECURE Act”), which went into effect on January 1, 2020, made significant changes to the laws governing IRAs and other retirement plans. In particular, the SECURE Act affected the required beginning date of participants or the date on which participants must begin taking annual required minimum distributions (RMDs). The SECURE Act also impacted Read More

Section 280G of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) applies to so-called "golden parachute payments," which generally are made when a corporation experiences a change in control. Under this section, disqualified individuals who receive excess parachute payments must pay a 20% excise tax on those payments, and the corporation loses the deduction for those payments.  Parachute payments are payments contingent on a Read More

Brittany Hope, a former full-time brand manager for Amazon, has filed suit against the company in a New York federal district court. Hope claims that the retail giant wrongfully terminated her for “job abandonment” in July 2020 after taking medical leave for developing long-term health complications from a COVID-19 infection. She also claims that Amazon violated state and federal disability laws and state labor laws Read More

Plan fiduciaries have a duty under ERISA to pay only a reasonable amount for services provided to the plan. When a group health plan offers insurance, service providers may receive commissions directly from the insurance company rather than from the plan. This arrangement can make it difficult for plan fiduciaries to determine what they paid the service provider and whether that fee was reasonable.  The purpose of Read More

An increasing number of states have passed laws requiring employers to provide their employees with varying amounts of paid sick leave. Employers operating in multiple states or expanding to new states need to be aware of the common features of these individual state laws as well as their differences. States Currently Requiring Employers to Provide Paid Sick Leave Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Read More

In mid-April 2022, the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) officially opened its out-of-network payment dispute resolution portal under the No Surprises Act. This portal is the mechanism that many providers and payers must use to settle cases in certain circumstances. Some states have set up their own dispute resolution processes, and self-insured plans in those states must use the HHS portal, unless Read More

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued a warning about its intention to launch an investigative program into those plans that offer cryptocurrency and related products as investment options. The DOL’s investigative program would include those products offered through brokerage windows, implying that plan fiduciaries might be responsible for those investments. Therefore, plan fiduciaries need to carefully Read More

On April 22, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued its decision in Hawkins v. Cintas Corporation, No. 21-3156, holding that ERISA claims for breach of fiduciary duty belong to the plan. As a result, plan members alleging harm to their individual retirement accounts in defined contribution plans, cannot be forced to arbitrate their claims without the plan's consent.  Former employees filed Read More

On April 19, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the U.S. Treasury issued joint guidance concerning the 2020 Transparency in Coverage Final Rules. The primary subject of this guidance, entitled FAQs About Affordable Care Act Implementation Part 53, involves the provision of a safe harbor for health plans to disclose in-network health costs, that do not Read More