Mid-Year Labor & Employment Law Update: Key Developments and Compliance Strategies
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Gag Clause Prohibitions
DOL Restructures: OFCCP on the Chopping Block as Opinion Letters Expand - #WorkforceWednesday® - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Forfeitures Under Fire
Independent Contractor Rule, EEO-1 Reporting, and New York Labor Law Amendment - #WorkforceWednesday® - Employment Law This Week®
Navigating Contractor vs. Employee Classification
Work This Way: A Labor & Employment Law Podcast | Episode 45: New Leadership at Employment-Related Federal Agencies with David Dubberly of Maynard Nexsen
Multijurisdictional Employers, Part 1: Independent Contractors vs. Employees
Non-Competes Eased, Anti-DEI Rule Blocked, Contractor Rule in Limbo - Employment Law This Week® - #WorkforceWednesday®
#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Leadership, NLRB Quorum, EEOC Enforcement Priorities - Employment Law This Week®
The Labor Law Insider: What's Next for Labor Law Under the Trump Administration, Part I
The Implications of President Trump's EO on Gender Ideology: What's the Tea in L&E?
#WorkforceWednesday®: Federal Agencies Begin Compliance Efforts Under Trump Administration - Employment Law This Week®
Fostering Teamwork: Lessons From the Dynamic Duo of Monsters, Inc. — Hiring to Firing Podcast
#WorkforceWednesday®: Employment Law Changes Under President Trump - Employment Law This Week®
Employment Law Now VIII-158 - DEI Developments and Executive Coaching
Now Is the Time to Conduct I-9 Audits: What's the Tea in L&E?
Employment Law Now VIII-157 - Top 5 L&E Issues to Watch in 2025
Constangy Clips Ep. 6 - Federal Court Blocks DOL Rule: What Employers Need to Know
The Labor Law Insider - Elections Have Consequences: Labor Law Changes Anticipated Under Trump Administration, Part II
On January 17, 2025, the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that the 2024 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) Final Rule...more
Only weeks after the principal effective date for the final 2024 federal mental health parity rules for employer-sponsored health benefit plans, those rules—and specifically some key features that are frustrating...more
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit panel appeared skeptical during oral arguments in which conservative states and Texas-based energy interests sought to reverse a district judge’s order upholding an environmental,...more
Since 1984, citation to Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council ("Chevron") has meant that courts should defer to an agency's interpretations of an ambiguous statute—as long as the agency's interpretation is...more
Under recently finalized federal regulations (commonly referred to as the “Fiduciary Rule”) that were scheduled to become effective on September 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor intended to expand the fiduciary...more
The effective dates of the Department of Labor’s new 2024 fiduciary advice rule (the “2024 Fiduciary Rule”) and the amendments to Prohibited Transaction Exemptions 84-24, 75-1, 77-4, 80-83, 83-1, 86-128, and 2020-02 (the...more
The July Monthly Minute considers the impact of the Supreme Court’s Loper decision in overturning the longstanding Chevron deference standard, along with a district court case awarding penalties for failing to produce plan...more
On July 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (“Fifth Circuit”) vacated a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (“District Court”) that upheld the U.S. Department of Labor’s...more
On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that upends a longstanding feature of administrative law—Chevron deference. In Loper Bright, the Court expressly overruled...more
For the last 40 years, judges were required to defer to administrative agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal statutes under Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The Supreme Court upended that...more
All qualified retirement plans are subject to a myriad of requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA). The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is charged with enforcing the...more
On January 2, 2024, McDermott filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) and the United States Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) in United Behavioral Health v. David K., No. 23-586, in the US...more
On September 21, 2023, a Texas federal court dismissed an action commenced by more than two dozen Republican state attorneys general challenging a 2022 Department of Labor (DOL) Rule that addressed consideration of ESG...more
On September 21, 2023, Judge Kacsmaryk (N.D. Texas), a famously conservative Trump-appointed jurist, upheld a Department of Labor rule promulgated by the Biden Administration that enables employee retirement plans to consider...more
The past year has seen a new star become fixed in the judicial firmament. The US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, has found new prominence, most recently retaining a challenge 26 states...more
On August 17, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a Department of Labor (“DOL”) advisory opinion, which found that an insurance plan was not governed by ERISA, was unenforceable under the...more
McDermott Will & Emery’s Andrew C. Liazos, Michael B. Kimberly and Charlie Seidell recently filed an amicus brief in the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on behalf of the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC). McDermott...more
On January 7, 2021, President-elect Joe Biden named Boston Mayor Martin Walsh as his nominee for Secretary of Labor. Walsh’s nomination raises questions for the future of the Labor Department’s (“DOL’s”) “fiduciary rule,”...more
In June 2019, a unanimous Supreme Court in Kisor v. Wilkie retained but limited the scope of Auer deference – the court-created doctrine that courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations or other...more
In the last post in this series, we examined the regulatory response by certain states to the final regulations governing association health plans, which were issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in June 2018. As we...more
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ rejection of the DOL’s Fiduciary rule reintroduces the 1975 five-factor fiduciary test and creates uncertainty for plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries and investment advisors. After years of...more
The future of the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary rule is in limbo following the Fifth Circuit’s decision striking it down “in toto.” The future of the Fiduciary rule is uncertain, particularly in light of the Fifth...more
On March 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated, in its entirety, amendments to Rule 29 C.F.R. § 2510.3-21 ("Fiduciary Rule"), codifying the Obama-era's expansive definition of the term "investment advice...more
On March 15, 2018, in a 2–1 decision, the Fifth Circuit vacated all parts of the Department of Labor's so-called "Fiduciary Rule" in Chamber of Commerce, et. al. v. Acosta, No. 17-10238 (5th Cir. March 15, 2018). The Labor...more
Just as we are tuning in for March Madness, it seems that the Department of Labor (Department) has been dealt the latest upset in the fight to implement its final rule, which regulates certain activities of financial service...more