DOL's semiannual regulatory agenda, where EBSA rulemakings get sequenced. The notable thing is how empty it is: the EBSA section carries exactly one entry, the IDR Operations rule, and that rule was already finalized on June 4. In other words, EBSA currently has no pending rulemaking on the public agenda at all.

The federal IDR process moves from single-use web forms to a centralized IDR Gateway late this year, with account registration opening September 15. Practical note for sponsors: a plan using a TPA does not register itself, but should confirm before September 15 that its TPA holds the administrator role.

In a published opinion, the Eleventh Circuit reversed summary judgment for Royal Caribbean in the imprudence suit over its proprietary Russell target-date funds, holding that a plaintiff need not identify an apples-to-apples comparator to establish objective imprudence in every case. Qualitative evidence such as a fund's unpopularity and negative analyst ratings can carry the point, and a fund's own custom benchmark is not automatically the only proper measuring stick when the plaintiff's theory is that the benchmark's built-in features are what made the fund imprudent.

On remand from the Supreme Court, Judge Castel split the jury question in the surviving prohibited-transaction claim: the request that fiduciaries make good the plan's losses goes to a jury, because, in the court's words, it is "a 'make good' remedy, and hence legal in nature, to which the plaintiffs are entitled to a jury," while the equitable relief, including removal of fiduciaries, an accounting, and reformation, will be tried by the bench. The order's conclusion reads as a flat denial of Cornell's motion, but the body grants it in part. Both halves matter to anyone tracking whether ERISA fiduciary claims get juries.

A Minnesota federal judge allowed target-date imprudence and self-dealing claims against 3M to proceed after finding the amended complaint's Fidelity Freedom fund comparison a meaningful benchmark, while narrowing other theories. The suit was dismissed this spring with leave to amend for exactly this deficiency, so the ruling shows what a benchmark allegation that works actually looks like.

Thompson Hine works through the proposed regulations' answers to the open Trump Accounts questions, most significantly how salary-reduction contributions run through section 125 cafeteria plans, plus the nondiscrimination testing rules employers have been waiting on.

The companion analysis: for the first time, comprehensive regulatory guidance on dependent care assistance program nondiscrimination testing under section 129, including the 55 percent average-benefits test that has run on informal practice for decades.

IRS Announcement 2026-15 gives employers using preapproved defined contribution plans until September 30, 2028 to adopt newly approved documents for the fourth remedial amendment cycle. Mercer maps the dates plan sponsors and document providers need on the calendar.

Mayer Brown makes the affirmative case for collective investment trusts in defined contribution plans: how CITs are regulated, why their costs run lower than comparable mutual funds, and what fiduciaries should document when adopting them.

Twenty years after the Pension Protection Act made target-date funds the default, Sway Research maps a $5.3 trillion TDF market shifting toward collective investment trusts and retirement-income features.

Plan sponsors seeking IRS sign-off on individual plan questions get a simpler road: new Form 15662 standardizes private letter ruling requests, pay.gov filing opens August 26, and paper submissions end September 4. Worth knowing before your next plan design question needs a ruling.

Rising discount rates cut liabilities faster than muted equity returns could offset, pushing corporate pension funded status to a 2026 high in July.

Bloomberg Law reports early signals that small employers will be slow to add Trump Account contributions even as the proposed rules clear a path, with practitioners pointing to an administrative load that outweighs the $2,500 draw for many.

The Slott team on the administrative requirements employers must meet to contribute to Trump accounts, and why small employers in particular may find the compliance load heavier than the $2,500 benefit suggests.

Fred Reish's series on the DOL's alternative-assets proposal reaches the performance-benchmark factor: what the proposed regulation would require fiduciaries to consider when benchmarking alternatives inside participant-directed plans.

A third pass at the CRR small-business research the Digest has followed: misperceptions rather than economics drive the coverage gap, which makes education the intervention.

A new IRIC white paper argues sponsors can help participants break the psychological barrier between saving and spending. The behavioral half of the decumulation problem.

A Zety survey finds a fifth of Gen X workers expect never to retire, with rising costs and inflation the leading culprits.

Illinois amended its Human Rights Act on August 7 to establish workplace protections for employees experiencing menopause-related conditions, effective January 1, 2027, and reaching employers with a single Illinois employee. Littler on the compliance build-out between now and the effective date.

Jackson Lewis on the same statute from the accommodation side: Illinois joins Rhode Island and Philadelphia in making menopause-related conditions a protected status, and employers should review handbooks, leave policies, and benefit designs before the January effective date.

The benefits-design case: menopause-related productivity loss costs U.S. employers an estimated $1.8 billion annually while only 18 percent treat it as a material benefits issue. The new state laws will force the gap onto agendas.

Under pressure to stay competitive while controlling costs, employers are turning new scrutiny on PBM contracts, hospital prices, and GLP-1 coverage heading into 2027 planning.

Mercer's quarterly state survey: Virginia enacted both paid family and medical leave and paid sick and safe leave, several states passed major PBM laws including a Tennessee statute challenged in court the day it took effect, and Alabama, Georgia, and Texas legislated on AI use in benefits.

Judge Gilliam granted preliminary approval of a $13 million settlement resolving ERISA fiduciary-breach and benefit-denial claims by 220 former Atmel employees over severance under the Atmel U.S. Severance Guarantee Benefit Program: $9.5 million to the class plus $3.5 million in fees, reported to deliver 80 to 100 percent of unpaid severance with interest.

The counterpoint to the 3M ruling, from the same Minnesota federal court: in Scholin v. Digi-Key, Judge Bryan dismissed a challenge to American Century target-date funds because the complaint never explained why its comparator funds were comparable, calling their composition a mystery. Together the two rulings sketch the line between benchmark allegations that survive and ones that don't.

Groom surveys the tobacco-surcharge docket after the trio of July decisions favoring employers, including the Target and Campbell Soup dismissals covered here this week, and asks whether the 75-case wave has crested or is merely regrouping.

The full picture on the Alcoa decision the Digest flagged Monday: Roberts walks through the Seventh Circuit's holding that the CBAs' silence on benefit duration supports class treatment of 3,000-plus pre-1993 retirees, while the judicial-estoppel basis for the retirees' summary judgment win could not stand.

In Klawonn v. Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans, the Ninth Circuit vacated summary judgment for the fiduciaries and sent the case back for evaluation under Anderson v. Intel's prospective-methods standard: prudence is judged by the methods fiduciaries employed, not by whether underperformance was substantial and consistent.

Hall's midyear map of the ERISA litigation plan sponsors should be tracking through the back half of 2026.