BENEFITS DIGEST

New York’s Trapped at Work Act restricts agreements that make workers owe their employer money for leaving a job. New state guidance explains which repayment arrangements fall outside the prohibition for terms entered into or amended on or after December 19, 2026. Littler explains that truly voluntary arrangements separate from obtaining or keeping a job can fall outside the law, and distinguishes education programs, incentives, misconduct repayment and advances. A valid repayment obligation doesn’t by itself authorize a payroll deduction.

A plan’s mental health rules can look evenhanded on paper and still make treatment harder to obtain. Proskauer highlights that tension in Labor’s enforcement guidance, which points to problems such as longer authorization times and reimbursement practices that make it difficult to retain mental health providers. Although enforcement of parts of the 2024 rule is on hold, the statutory obligation to compare treatment restrictions remains. Sponsors should know what operational data their vendors can produce, rather than relying only on a written assurance that the plan complies.

Labor’s mental health parity investigations will focus on three areas. First are separate restrictions on mental health and substance-use treatment, including exclusions. Second are medical-necessity standards and review processes. Third is network adequacy, including how providers are admitted and reimbursed. M3 Insurance explains what employers should check against those priorities. Prior authorization and other reviews must be comparable to, and no more stringent than, those used for medical and surgical benefits. The focus areas help organize a compliance review, but they don’t eliminate other enforcement or the requirement to produce the plan’s comparative analyses.

President Trump signed the Retire Through Ownership Act on October 15. It allows employee stock ownership plan fiduciaries to rely in good faith on independent appraisals of privately held company stock that follow established IRS valuation principles, and their other fiduciary duties remain unchanged. The valuation question has driven much ESOP litigation because the Labor Department never finalized its own regulation, and the law permits further DOL guidance without expanding the agency’s authority. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent and the House 401 to 14.

Amundsen Davis reports Illinois contractors receiving prevailing-wage audit findings the firm says depart from the statute, industry practice, and the agency’s own published guidance, with fringe-benefit credits among the flash points. This is advocacy grounded in the firm’s audit experience, not a new regulation or a judicial finding of agency error. Contractors on public work should document fringe-benefit calculations against the published rules.

Fred Reish continues his series on the Labor Department’s proposed framework for alternative assets in defined contribution plans, reaching the liquidity factor. His point is structural. Participants can trade daily while many alternative vehicles cannot, so a fiduciary has to investigate how a fund bridges that mismatch, and reliance on managers or other fiduciaries must be informed reliance that does not look past contrary information or conflicts. The framework is a proposal, not final law, and the critique is the author’s.

Hall Benefits Law reminds employers that parity obligations did not pause with the 2024 regulations’ nonenforcement. The statute and the 2013 rules still apply, comparative analyses required since the 2021 appropriations act remain mandatory, and EBSA’s current enforcement guidance signals attention to exclusions, medical-necessity review practices and network adequacy. ERIC’s challenge to the 2024 rules has been stayed since May 2025, which leaves the older framework as the operative one for now.

A narrower federal enforcement agenda doesn’t eliminate mental-health parity duties. This National Law Review analysis discusses the Labor Department’s focus on coverage exclusions, medical-necessity standards and access to in-network care. The [enforcement bulletin](https://beta.dol.gov/policy-regulations/reference-materials/guidance-searches/ebsa-field-assistance-bulletin-no-2026-03) preserves statutory duties, including comparative analyses of treatment limits that aren’t expressed as dollar or visit caps. Labor, Treasury and HHS have jointly announced nonenforcement of newer provisions of the 2024 rule, but that policy doesn’t erase the underlying law. The replacement-rule timetable also needs care. In their [September 30 court filing](https://litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ERISA-INDUSTRY-COMMITTEE-v.-DEPARTMENT-OF-HEALTH-AND-HUMAN-SERVICES-et-al_2026.09.30_JOINT-STATUS-REPORT.pdf), the agencies said they intend to submit a proposal for White House regulatory review by December 18, 2026. That’s a submission target, not a public-release deadline. ERIC objects that the agencies have retreated from their earlier December 31 publication target.

Hand Benefits & Trust is asking a federal court to dismiss the Labor Department’s lawsuit over its collective investment trusts, pooled funds that combine retirement assets from many employer plans. The department’s suit challenges how the trusts were designed and run, including lending between the funds. NAPA reports the firm’s arguments that the government confuses investment-product design with fiduciary conduct and relies on unsuitable comparisons. Its [October 13 motion](https://fcwpol.files.cmp.optimizely.com/download/5c888e80c75111f1b299a63ba11e4f8f) presents the defendants’ position. The court hasn’t adopted those arguments or resolved the department’s allegations.

A retirement plan can need cash even when its participants aren’t asking for withdrawals. A termination, recordkeeper change or merger can create demands that an investment’s redemption restrictions make difficult to meet. Fred Reish examines the plan-level liquidity example in the DOL’s proposed investment-selection rule. One proposed path would let fiduciaries rely on an eligible mutual fund’s regulated liquidity program. For other vehicles, including collective investment trusts, the example calls for a written representation or appropriate due diligence about a comparable program, critical review of any representation, and attention to information that calls it into question. The proposal would offer a route to a prudence presumption for this factor, not the only way to satisfy ERISA. A representation would still need to be read and understood, not merely filed.

An Ohio financial adviser allegedly stole employees’ retirement contributions, then used proceeds from a fraudulent mortgage to repay the plan. An October 1 federal [indictment](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/us-v-shabazz-indictment-2026-10-01.pdf) charges Seku Shabazz, formerly known as Jason Brooks, with embezzling about $38,081 withheld from approximately 24 employees’ paychecks. It separately alleges that he failed to remit about $44,632 in employer matching contributions to the Great Lakes Financing LLC 401(k) Profit Sharing Plan. [Prosecutors say](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndoh/pr/ohio-man-indicted-stealing-employee-401k-funds-and-client-investments-and-using-others) he later used others’ identities to obtain a mortgage on their home and directed roughly $97,069 of the proceeds toward fully repaying the plan, including lost earnings. The 13-count indictment also covers an alleged investment scheme involving more than $1.2 million. These are allegations, not findings of guilt.

A closed Washington aircraft-services business left employees with retirement accounts they couldn’t access. PLANSPONSOR reports that a federal court [appointed](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/dol-v-commercial-aircraft-interiors-order-2026-09-29.pdf) AMI Benefit Plan Administrators Inc. as independent fiduciary for Commercial Aircraft Interiors’ abandoned 401(k) plan after the Labor Department sued. DOL’s [complaint](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/dol-v-commercial-aircraft-interiors-complaint.pdf) identified 59 participants and about $260,000 in plan assets as of January 8, 2026, and said the remaining company representative lacked authority to complete the necessary work. The September 29 default judgment authorizes the independent fiduciary to administer and distribute the remaining assets and terminate the plan.

Representatives Bobby Scott and Mark DeSaulnier, the ranking Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee and its pensions subcommittee, sent an October 8 [letter](https://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/scott_desaulnier_letter_to_ebsa_re_erisa_enforcement_and_staffing.pdf) to Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz questioning whether the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the Labor Department agency that enforces ERISA, can still police benefit plans covering 155 million Americans after a wave of departures. The sharpest number they cite comes from a January 2026 inspector general report. EBSA is down to roughly one investigator for every 21,400 plans it oversees, from one per 13,900 two years earlier. The lawmakers asked for detailed workforce data by October 22. Josh Oppenheimer of the American Retirement Association reads the letter as a preview of oversight hearings and subpoenas if Democrats retake the House.

CBIZ’s October update flags three dates for employers. Medicare Part D creditable coverage notices, which tell employees whether their drug coverage is at least as good as standard Medicare coverage, are due before October 15. Extended Form 5500s for calendar-year plans are due October 15, and Massachusetts HIRD filings open November 15. The Labor Department’s benefits agency, in new Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, is focusing mental health parity enforcement on blanket exclusions of mental health treatment, the review practices plans use to decide whether care is necessary, and inadequate provider networks. Its updated red-flags checklist helps plans spot potential problems in their own designs while new regulations are drafted. The issue also covers the Trump Accounts temporary regulations, with IRS automatic enrollment reaching more than 60 million children and comments open through November 29, San Francisco’s 2027 health care expenditure rates, New York and New Jersey paid leave figures for 2027, and the District of Columbia’s October 1 reductions in paid family leave durations and maximum benefits.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Labor Department against Coastal Bridge and its sole owner, who kept withholding employees’ health premiums from paychecks while the company stopped forwarding them to its insurers and quit reimbursing Blue Cross for claims under its self-funded plan. At least 78 participants were left with $172,351 in unpaid medical bills, coverage lapsed while deductions continued, and the owner was ordered to pay $209,466 plus interest and permanently barred from serving as a plan fiduciary. The panel swept aside the defenses distressed sponsors reach for. Delegating plan tasks did not shed fiduciary status, the company’s role as named fiduciary did not shield the man who decided not to pay, and a surety’s control of receivables was no excuse. Financial trouble doesn’t excuse using employees’ health-plan contributions to cover the company’s other expenses.

The first wave of what-now commentary after the Anderson argument splits on whether fiduciaries should change anything before the decision. Plaintiff-side litigator Charles Field would have committees direct their consultants to compare each fund against a handful of alternatives with genuinely similar risk and objectives, on the theory that the benchmark question is coming for sponsors either way. Sidley’s Caroline Wong counters that the underlying prudence standards have not changed and the win is likely to be uniformity, with defendants nationwide able to make the same motion to dismiss arguments. The sleeper angle is regulatory. The Labor Department’s pending alternative-assets safe harbor proposal lists performance benchmarking among its factors, the Solicitor General’s office told the justices the DOL would welcome guidance on what meaningful means, and Simpson Thacher’s Erica Rozow expects the agency to hold its final rule until the opinion lands.

In Sonderling v. Sills, the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment making the president and sole owner of Coastal Bridge Company personally liable for $209,466.34 plus interest, and permanently barred him from serving as an ERISA fiduciary. The company withheld employee premium contributions without forwarding them to its dental, vision and voluntary coverage insurers, then stopped reimbursing Blue Cross under its self-funded medical plan, leaving at least 78 participants with $172,351.35 in denied claims. Unanswered requests for admission established the owner’s control over plan assets, and the court held that deciding which bills got paid was itself a fiduciary function, that the HR director’s signature on the administrative services agreement did not matter, and that neither corporate insolvency nor a surety’s control of receivables excuses failing to remit employee money. The owner could not use employees’ premium money to cover the company’s other bills.

Fred Reish continues his series on the Labor Department’s proposed rule for selecting investments in participant-directed plans, this time on liquidity at the plan level rather than the participant level. The proposal’s example asks fiduciaries weighing a fund that holds private assets to think about what happens when the plan itself needs to exit the investment, say in a recordkeeper change or a corporate merger, and whether redemptions by other investors could knock the fund off its target allocations. The proposal would treat fiduciaries as prudent if they evaluate the fund’s maximum illiquid allocation, how long a sale would take without giving up value, and the required exit notice. Reish’s caution is that weighing other plans’ redemptions isn’t common practice today and most committees aren’t equipped for it, which points toward delegating the analysis to an investment manager with authority to make the decision.

In a new Trucker Huss alert, Bryan Card walks through April's Technical Release 2026-01 on proxy advisory firms, the consultants who advise large investors on how to vote their shares in corporate elections. The Labor Department said such a firm can become an ERISA fiduciary two ways: by exercising control over votes tied to plan shares, or by regularly giving individualized voting advice for a fee. A contract disclaimer saying the advice won't be a 'primary basis' for decisions doesn't settle the question if the actual relationship says otherwise, and the department concluded ERISA generally doesn't preempt state laws requiring proxy advisers to disclose recommendations driven by nonfinancial considerations. This matters mainly for plans invested through collective investment trusts and separately managed accounts, because the shares those vehicles hold are plan assets whose votes belong to the plan. Shares held inside a mutual fund generally are not, so advice about voting them usually isn't fiduciary advice to the plan.

Ary Rosenbaum's short take on Technical Release 2026-02, in which the Labor Department concluded that Trump Accounts and most employer contribution programs tied to them won't be treated as pension plans under ERISA. The accounts belong to children, not employees, and the department described limits on employer involvement that keep a program outside Title I. His point for employers is that the guidance answers the ERISA-coverage question and that question only; the written-program, certification, and contribution-limit requirements still apply.

The Senate confirmed Keith Sonderling as Secretary of Labor on Wednesday, 47 to 41. He has served as the department's deputy secretary and, before that, as its acting head, so the benefits agenda he inherits is one he already helped run, from the alternative-assets executive order follow-through to the proxy voting guidance and EBSA's enforcement docket.

Roberts Disability Law analyzes the September 18 Schuyler decision. Sun Life's first vocational expert said the claimant's sales job required standing and walking about six hours a day; its second expert, on appeal, called the same job sedentary, and Sun Life denied benefits on the second description without explaining the switch. Judge Ronnie Abrams held that failing to explain a disagreement with the insurer's own expert violates the Department of Labor's claims regulation, so Sun Life lost the deferential review its plan terms would otherwise have earned, and the court looked at the claim fresh. The record was too disputed for summary judgment, and the court sent the claim back to Sun Life to consider in full, including the claimant's favorable Social Security award.

James Vincent Campbell, founder and chief executive of Axim Fringe Solutions Group, a third-party administrator that processes benefits for federal contractors' employees, pleaded guilty to theft from an ERISA plan after admitting he converted more than $8.8 million that federal contractor clients sent the firm to cover employees' health premiums and 401(k) contributions. Court documents describe 135 unauthorized withdrawals totaling $2,486,905 from the master trust where client funds were pooled, plus fee overcharges of up to five times the correct amount after the firm moved from Maryland to Arizona, with the money spent on big game hunting trips, taxidermy, jewelry, gambling, and payments to his girlfriend. He faces up to five years in prison. [PLANSPONSOR reports](https://www.plansponsor.com/arizona-tpa-ceo-pleads-guilty-to-embezzling-more-than-8m-from-erisa-plans) sentencing is set for January 2027. The case is a reminder that an administrator holding plan money in trust deserves the same diligence as any investment provider.

A Colorado father sued Cigna and Musarubra US, the sponsor of his family's self-funded health plan, on September 22 over denials of his teenage son's residential mental health treatment. The son, identified as J.S., had ADHD, depression, anxiety, substance use, and a Xanax and alcohol overdose about a week before his family placed him in a Utah wilderness therapy program. Cigna's denials shifted, per the [complaint](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/christian-s-v-cigna-complaint-2026-09-22.pdf): first no authorization on file, then experimental and investigational, then an appeal rejected as untimely. The residential placement that followed was denied as not medically necessary, and the requested external review was never completed on time. The family alleges that Cigna demanded signs of an immediate crisis before covering residential treatment, even though the plan covered care for patients who need round-the-clock treatment without acute hospitalization. The suit seeks the unpaid benefits plus an injunction against applying acute-care criteria to sub-acute claims and an order requiring disclosure of the guidelines behind denials. These are allegations, and Cigna has not yet responded. Medical-necessity review and exclusions are the areas [EBSA told its investigators to prioritize](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/ebsa-fab-2026-03-2026-09-08.pdf) this month. Sponsors should ask how their claims administrator decides whether residential mental health treatment is medically necessary and whether those criteria match the plan's coverage.

The comment period closed September 21 on the proposal to let group health plans deliver required notices electronically. As Hall Benefits Law explains, the optional safe harbor works by posting documents online and notifying participants where to find them, by email or through a web portal, mirroring what retirement plans have had since 2020, and anyone who prefers paper can opt out and receive paper copies. It would cover summary plan descriptions, summaries of benefits and coverage, COBRA notices, and HIPAA special-enrollment notices, among others. The website, which can be a mobile app, must keep documents up at least a year, be searchable, and let users print or save. One caution from [Marsh's alert](https://www.mercer.com/en-us/insights/us-health-news/dol-proposed-rule-would-ease-e-delivery-by-erisa-group-health-plans/) for sponsors planning ahead. A wrap document, a single document combining several benefit programs, may not fully qualify, because the safe harbor covers group health plan disclosures only.

ERISA attorney Fred Reish, quoted from a webinar this week, expects the Labor Department's alternative-assets rule to become final and effective toward the end of the first quarter of 2027 despite the fight over the comment file. In letters sent September 17, Representatives Bobby Scott and Jamie Raskin and Senator Bernie Sanders asked Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate nearly 12,000 apparently manufactured comments supporting the rule. Companion letters seek a Labor Department inspector general audit and press Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling to look himself.

The Labor Department has identified three priorities for mental health parity investigations. In [Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/ebsa-fab-2026-03-2026-09-08.pdf), issued September 8, investigators are told to focus on plans that exclude mental health treatments while covering comparable medical care, on how plans decide whether treatment is medically necessary, and on whether patients can actually get care through the plan's provider network, the areas EBSA says carry "the highest potential for significant harm." Plans must still maintain a written analysis comparing their restrictions on mental health and substance use treatment with those on medical and surgical care, and provide it to the Department on request. Participant complaints can prompt investigations beyond the three priorities. Epstein Becker notes the agencies have committed to proposing replacement parity regulations by December 31.

Health plans still need a written comparison of how they apply certain restrictions to mental health care and to medical care, even though the 2024 parity regulations aren't being enforced. Holland & Hart explains that the requirement comes from the statute. The firm also warns that failing to provide a required document after a participant's request can expose a plan administrator to penalties of up to $110 a day. The 2024 regulatory preamble suggests that the comparative analysis is among the documents participants can request. DOL's enforcement priorities include exclusions of mental health services, stricter medical-necessity standards than those used for medical care, and inadequate provider networks.

Comments closed September 21 on DOL's proposed electronic-disclosure option for group health plans. Under the proposal, plans could email a notice that documents are available online, but couldn't use that option to email the documents themselves because they may contain sensitive health information. Participants could request unlimited free paper copies. A single summary plan description covering medical, life, and disability benefits presents a complication. The new option would cover the medical benefits, while life and disability benefits would remain subject to the existing delivery rules, which allow workplace computer access or the recipient's agreement to electronic delivery. DOL requested comments on how to address the gap.

An important reminder about the parity guidance we covered Monday: EBSA's narrowed enforcement focus doesn't shrink the comparative analysis itself. Employers must still maintain a complete NQTL analysis covering all nonquantitative treatment limits, because participants can demand the full document with 30 days to produce it, private plaintiffs don't follow the agency's priorities, and participant complaints can still trigger investigations of any category.

The enforcement pause on parts of the 2024 rule doesn't remove the underlying duties, and Ogletree Deakins notes that violations can expose self-insured employers to an excise tax of $100 per day for each affected person. Eversheds Sutherland turns the bulletin's red flags into questions to ask when selecting a vendor, IFEBP highlights practices such as requiring an employee assistance program referral for mental health treatment when medical care has no comparable requirement, or applying reimbursement discounts only to master's-level mental health providers, and Proskauer cautions that the relief is temporary, conditional on pending litigation, and no shield against complaint-driven review of any category of comparative analysis.

Thursday's issue carried the government documents themselves, the enforcement bulletin and EBSA's red-flag checklist. Today we turn to the client briefing, which earned a slot of its own. Submitted by Aon's U.S. Health Solutions Compliance & Policy Consulting team, the four-page bulletin by Rebecca Sooter and Kristen Boorman explains EBSA's decision to concentrate parity enforcement on the three treatment-limitation categories it says carry the “highest potential for significant harm to plan participants.” Those are exclusions and separate limitations, medical-necessity review processes, and network adequacy, with authority reserved to investigate anything else “particularly in the context of participant complaints.” Aon's recommendation is the practical place to start. Get the comparative analyses from your vendors now and test them against the three priorities, using the red-flag page as the checklist.

One more word on parity this week, for what it adds to the calendar. Sheppard Mullin's team reads the new enforcement bulletin as “a reprioritization, not a reprieve,” and keeps the timeline in view. The agencies have committed to a replacement proposed rule by December 31, the industry challenge to the 2024 rule is still pending, and whether outcomes-based access standards survive remains an open question, so the landscape could shift again before year-end. Their caution is worth adopting now. Document the reasoning behind outcomes-data decisions, because the self-compliance tool alone will not carry a plan through whatever comes next.

The retirement money was supposedly in a “Mercury” account. According to the Department of Labor's complaint, the account did not exist. The suit, filed September 14, says that after participants began asking where their money was, WLPEO LLC chief executive Alan Kane, who is also the plan's trustee, told his co-chief executive it sat in that account, which only he could access, and months later admitted there was no such account. DOL alleges the company withheld $35,633 from employee paychecks between July 2023 and April 2024, then used the money for business expenses instead of depositing it in the plan. Colorado's Secretary of State has listed the company as delinquent since 2022. DOL is seeking more than repayment and lost earnings. It wants Kane removed as trustee, barred from ever serving as an ERISA fiduciary again, and replaced by an independent fiduciary at the defendants' expense.

The series on the DOL's alternative assets proposal reaches its third performance benchmark example, a target date fund holding only publicly traded securities. The fiduciary in the example builds a custom composite benchmark blending broad indices to match the fund's asset allocation, reviews it analytically, and compares performance component by component rather than in the aggregate, down to matching a 10 percent small cap growth sleeve with a 10 percent small cap growth index. The practical point is candid. This example is the easiest case the proposal will ever present, a fund holding nothing but publicly traded securities, and building a meaningful benchmark for it is already a heavy lift. Once private assets enter the mix, the lift gets heavier.

A webinar recap with more data than most. Hub's Sean Bjork and Jackson Laboratory's Adelia Soremekun walk the menu trends, with collective investment trusts now in 30.7 percent of plans and roughly two thirds of the largest, brokerage windows at 29 percent adoption and past 60 percent among the largest, and private market assets waiting on the DOL's prudent investment rule. The advice is measured. Bjork's clients are warming to products that seemed scary a few years ago, and the counsel for trying something new is guardrails, with no need to go big or go home.

The second-day read on Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, built on practitioner interviews. The critique is that the bulletin names its targets, blanket exclusions, utilization management, and network adequacy, without defining a violation. KFF's Kaye Pestaina says the Department outlined the areas it will focus on “but don't really give specifics about what is a violation in those areas.” Segal's Elena Lynett hears sponsors asking for “a clear path forward and clear boundaries,” and Morgan Lewis's Sage Fattahian calls the guidance a step in the right direction that leaves the original question open, what exactly the Department wants to see in a comparative analysis. The statutory comparative analysis obligation remains fully enforceable, the 2024 rule's additions sit in a nonenforcement window, and new proposed regulations are expected by December.

The compliance-alert read on the same bulletin, from a usefully different angle. Vorys traces the FAB's origin to Executive Order 14219's deregulatory review, which sent EBSA back to re-evaluate its MHPAEA enforcement approach, and notes the bulletin is by its terms internal policy directed at EBSA staff that plans can nonetheless use to guide compliance. The most useful detail is the example of what counts as a blanket exclusion. A plan that excludes residential treatment for mental health and substance use disorder conditions while covering comparable inpatient or post-acute care on the medical side, skilled nursing included, is the kind of exclusion EBSA will pursue. Plans relying on proprietary clinical guidelines for medical necessity must make them available on request, under ERISA section 712(a)(4). The advice to employers is to confirm their plans have documentation showing compliance with the three priorities, since EBSA will still investigate other limitations as participant complaints surface them.

Three firms read [Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03](https://beta.dol.gov/system/files/media/policy-regulations/guidance-search/ebsa-field-assistance-bulletin-no-2026-03.pdf) within a day of each other, and together the readings cover the ground. Mayer Brown inventories the nonenforcement box, which holds the 2024 rule's meaningful benefits standard, its discriminatory-factors prohibition, its relevant data requirements, and the 2026 comparative analysis provisions, all suspended until the pending litigation resolves plus 18 months. Segal turns the bulletin into a sponsor worklist, with red flags running from ABA age limits to EAPs functioning as gatekeepers and 14 questions to put to vendors. Proskauer walks the procedure, where comparative analyses remain due within 10 days of a request, EBSA reserves every other NQTL category when participant complaints arrive, and new proposed regulations may come as early as this year.

The litigation-side view of what the wellness FAQs do to the pending cases. The surcharge suits that began in 2024 lean on three theories, that the only reasonable alternative demanded quitting, that mid-year completers got no refund, and that alternatives went undisclosed. The guidance directly rebuts the refund theory, reasoning that the language plaintiffs cite came from the 2013 regulation's preamble, not its text. The prediction is measured. The FAQs could sway courts toward employers and thin out new filings where the alternative standard was actually disclosed, which leaves disclosure hygiene as the live battleground.

The long-running alternative-assets series reaches the proposal's liquidity factor, and the reading is more permissive than sponsors might expect. The DOL's proposed regulation lists six factors for vetting alternatives in participant-directed plans; on liquidity, it says a prudent process may sacrifice some plan or individual level liquidity in pursuit of additional risk adjusted return. The analysis runs on two levels: participant liquidity, where daily trading will remain the practical demand, and plan liquidity, where the question is how hard an option is to remove once chosen. The prediction is that private fund allocations will arrive mostly inside target date funds, which can pair daily participant trading with a 60 to 90 day removal window.

The DOL released Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03 this week with a companion web page that reads like an examiner's checklist, and Seyfarth turns both into a working roadmap. Enforcement will concentrate on three areas: blanket treatment exclusions, where residential eating disorder care and ABA therapy for autism are the named examples; medical necessity and utilization management; and network adequacy and provider reimbursement. Worth underlining: the nonenforcement relief for contested pieces of the 2024 final rule, which the agency is reworking through new rulemaking, changes nothing about the statutory comparative analysis obligation for NQTLs. Since vendors hold most of the data these reviews require, the guidance doubles as leverage for negotiating that support into service agreements.

Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, addressed by Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz to the agency's enforcement staff, sets out how EBSA will enforce the mental health parity law's nonquantitative treatment limitation requirements while the 2024 final rule remains in nonenforcement status. The bulletin identifies three priority areas. Blanket exclusions applied only to mental health and substance use disorder benefits, medical necessity standards including prior authorization and concurrent and retrospective review, and network adequacy with attention to provider admission standards and reimbursement methodologies. Proprietary clinical guidelines may be used but must be produced on request to investigators and participants.

The twentieth installment of Reish's series on the DOL's alternative assets proposal reaches the hardest benchmarking case, an asset allocation fund holding private equity alongside public securities. The proposal expects a meaningful benchmark that blends broad market indices for the traditional sleeve with the methodologies investment professionals actually use for the private sleeve, such as internal rate of return and public market equivalents. His warning lands on the same phrase Toth examines above. Fiduciaries who receive an adviser's benchmark recommendation must read, critically review, and understand it before adopting it as their own, because blind reliance will not support compliance. He notes the final rule could be out and effective in the first quarter of 2027.

A layoff can quietly trigger a 401(k) problem. If employer-initiated turnover hits 20% in a plan year, the IRS presumes a partial plan termination, and everyone affected becomes fully vested in employer contributions no matter what the vesting schedule says. Troutman warns that a multi-year phased RIF can stretch the measurement period, that some voluntary quits connected to the RIF count too, and that missing one of these invites participant lawsuits and IRS or DOL audits. Worth reading before the workforce decision is final, not after.

Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 made late deposits of employee deferrals and loan repayments a DOL enforcement priority, and the agency is mining Form 5500 filings to find them. Small plans must deposit within seven business days of withholding; larger plans must deposit as soon as amounts can reasonably be segregated, typically two to three business days, with the fifteenth business day an emergency outer limit rather than a deadline. Ferenczy recommends written deposit procedures and prompt engagement with the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program when deposits slip.

In a new WatchBlog post, the Government Accountability Office revisits its recommendation that the Labor Secretary provide guidance on participant data privacy for plan sponsors and service providers.

Review of 31 retirement plan service providers finds few explicitly restrict participant data sharing for marketing, prompting GAO to call for stronger DOL privacy guidance.

House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Ryan Mackenzie have asked the DOL Inspector General to expand its information-sharing audit beyond EBSA, the Wage and Hour Division, and the Office of the Solicitor, the three agencies covered by the IG's June 30 report on the Department's common interest agreements with outside litigants. The August 26 letter asks whether the same informal sharing practices extended to other major DOL enforcement agencies.

Hall Benefits Law's half-year policy roundup names four developments: the DOL's proposed safe harbor for fiduciaries selecting 401(k) investments, EBSA's shift to fewer but more participant-focused enforcement interactions, SEC moves to streamline executive compensation disclosure by company size, and EBSA's technical release that ERISA Title I generally does not apply to Trump Accounts. A mixed but useful mid-year checkpoint for benefits and executive compensation practice.

Rosenbaum argues the first fifteen minutes of a DOL investigation tell the examiner how a plan is really run, and walks through the housekeeping that signals a well-governed plan before anyone opens the investment lineup.

The companion piece: Maryland DOL released new employer resources ahead of the FAMLI program's first deadlines, and Ogletree rounds up what is there.

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.

On April 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2026-01 (“FAB 2026-01” or the “FAB”).

On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) published a proposed rule (the “Proposed Rule”) that would create a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to furnish participant and beneficiary disclosures electronically by default.

EBSA's proposed rule, on public inspection today and scheduled for Federal Register publication July 23, would establish rules for electronic disclosure of required documents by ERISA group health plans. The 2020 e-delivery safe harbor covered only retirement plans; this 96-page proposal addresses the health and welfare side. The comment deadline will be set at publication.

The DOL recently released its Agency Rule List, which contains several important retirement and health plan initiatives for this year

EBSA's 2026 regulatory agenda lists ~20 guidance projects in pre-/proposed/final rule stages, including the fiduciary investment-selection rule (comments analyzed through August, no target date), the

EBSA sent its replacement for the 2022 Biden-era ESG rule to OIRA on June 30, 2026; agenda target release July 2026. Expected to restrict fiduciary consideration of climate/social factors under the

An ongoing dispute about a Department of Labor advisory opinion published last September raises a basic but unanswered question under the ERISA: What is a bonus? The answer to this simple question is

EBSA enforcement-priority shift: 'will not regulate through enforcement'; focus on significant-harm / bad-faith cases; pending and proposed ESOP valuation investigations reviewed against a fairness

Proposed rule requiring PBMs servicing group health plans to disclose direct and indirect compensation to plan fiduciaries, extending the ERISA §408(b)(2) service-provider fee-disclosure framework