Business Better Podcast Episode: Bridging Campuses: Legal Insights on Education Industry Consolidation – Labor, Employment, and Benefits
How ERISA Litigators Strengthen Plan Compliance and Risk Management: One-on-One with Jeb Gerth
#WorkforceWednesday®: New DOL Guidance - ERISA Plan Cybersecurity Update - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - ERISA Forfeiture Litigation
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What the J&J Case Means for Plan Administrators
The No Surprises Act: A Cost Saving Opportunity for Employer Plan Sponsors
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - New Federal Rule Aims to Hold Investment Advisors to a Higher Standard
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 – Top-Hat Plans — Special Edition Podcast
Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation: Getting Ready for 2024 - Health and Welfare Plan Developments — Special Edition Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Partial Plan Terminations
Podcast Episode 189: Adding Context to Compliance and Color To Your Legal Practice
#WorkforceWednesday: SECURE Act 2.0 - What 401(k) Plan Sponsors Need to Know - Employment Law This Week®
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Plan Administrators’ 2022 Year-End Checklist
An Inside Look as a Juror - FCRA Focus Podcast
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Multiemployer Plans
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Court Decisions Impacting Plan Sponsors and Fiduciaries
(A)ESOP's Fables - The Income and Estate Tax-Free ESOP
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - What Constitutes Plan Assets Under ERISA?
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion - Group Health Plan Service Provider Compensation Disclosure Requirements
When a plan administrator selects an insurer to provide annuities for a retirement plan subject to ERISA, it is engaging in a fiduciary act that must be conducted prudently. Mistakes in this process can expose the plan...more
Many companies are scrambling to quickly assess how to reduce the business impact of the upheaval to U.S. manufacturing and trading with the recent onslaught of tariffs threatened or imposed by the United States and the...more
On April 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-02 (the “Bulletin”), clarifying the annual funding notice requirements applicable to defined benefit pension plans under section...more
A New York Appellate court affirmed a dismissal of a fiduciary breach claim against the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York, and Board of Education Retirement System...more
SECURE 2.0 introduced many changes for retirement plans, including updated disclosure requirements for a defined benefit plan’s annual funding notice (AFN). These updated AFN disclosure requirements apply for all plan years...more
As 2024 comes to an end, we are pleased to present our traditional End-of-Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. Part 1 addressed health and welfare plan...more
On November 1, 2024, the 2025 calendar year cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to the contribution and compensation limits for tax-qualified retirement plans were released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Notice...more
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insures most private sector (i.e., non-governmental) defined benefit pension plans. The Plan Administrator of each pension plan covered under ERISA is required to annually file...more
In a defined benefit plan, participants usually accrue a monthly benefit based on a formula that typically considers their last three years’ salary before retirement and years of service with their employer. For example, the...more
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), it is important to reflect on the impact this legislation has had on private sector employee benefit plans such as...more
From the 2010 outset of its project to extend ERISA fiduciary status broadly to financial intermediaries, including insurance agents, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has consistently relied on the evolution of the private...more
On this episode of Williams Mullen's Benefits Companion, host Brydon DeWitt discusses a recent ERISA class action case, Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson et al., that is a wake-up call for plan fiduciaries managing health and...more
They say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff. As a kid from Brooklyn, I do sweat the small stuff. When they say that you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, they mean that you should not focus your energy on things that...more
In Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 140 S Ct. 1615 (2020), the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, held that participants in an ERISA defined benefit pension plan did not have standing under...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it has finalized, together with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the third and final round of revisions to the Form 5500 Annual...more
The SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (SECURE 2.0) provides welcome relief to private sector single employer sponsors of defined benefit pension plans (Pension Plan(s)). Effective for plan years beginning on and after January 1, 2024,...more
As part of our ongoing series on SECURE 2.0, this post discusses three significant changes to corrections of common retirement plan errors: (1) New rules for correcting overpayments, (2) expansion of the Self-Correction...more
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, courts around the country continue to articulate the pleading requirements for a breach of duty of prudence claim under the Employee Retirement...more
The closure of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation car manufacturing plant in 1963 was a major catalyst leading into the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Savings Act of 1974 (“ERISA.”) ...more
Many traditional defined benefit plans, such as final average pay plans, offer a lump sum distribution as an optional form of benefit. The amount of the lump sum distribution is sensitive to the applicable interest rate...more
The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has dismissed an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) class action lawsuit challenging a retirement plan's use of an outdated mortality table in calculating...more
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Act (the “SECURE Act”), passed at the end of 2019, adds a participant disclosure requirement that addresses a long-held concern of lawmakers that many participants are not...more
On January 24, 2022, in Hughes v. Northwestern University, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed its 2015 decision in Tibble v. Edison International, holding that fiduciaries of ERISA-subject defined contribution...more
A qualified domestic relations order (“QDRO”) is a state domestic relations order that assigns to an alternate payee (such as a former spouse or a child) the right to receive all or a portion of benefits payable to a plan...more
The principles governing how ERISA plans determine a participant’s beneficiary haven’t changed much since the country singer George Strait sang “Write this down” in 1999. In short, the participant has to write it down … on...more