The Department of Labor has slightly delayed the deadlines on significant new affirmative obligations for fiduciaries of retirement plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

A new bill from a pair of Democratic senators would eliminate a tax break on corporate stock options.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has proposed two sets of regulations under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act relating to changes that will take effect in 2014.

Your participants want to sue you! Yep, that's right. Apparently there is a whole cottage industry springing up relating to participants suing for hidden fees.

The Department of Labor has asked for public comment on a proposed rule that would significantly affect reporting requirements for agreements with labor relations consultants, including attorneys.

On June 17, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new procedures for health plans with limited benefits to obtain temporary waivers of the restrictions on annual dollar limits that were imposed by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Plan sponsors who forget to actually do discrimination testing run into all sorts of problems, including the possibility that their plan can be disqualified. To pass the Section 105(h) nondiscrimination rules an employer must meet two separate tests.

Your communications with your attorney are not privileged. Wow, that is a scary thought, isn't it?

Benefit administrators, 401(k) vendors, recordkeepers and benefits professionals regularly recommend that participants in qualified retirement plans periodically review and update their beneficiary designation forms. Qualified retirement plans provide that if a married participant dies without a beneficiary designated, the death benefit will be paid to the participant's spouse, unless the spouse consents in writing to appointing an alternate payee. For a single participant, benefits are paid to their estate if no beneficiary is designated. What could be simpler that merely indicating to whom or to what entity a participant wishes their assets to be transferred in the event of death? Unfortunately, numerous issues arise in connection with the simple task of designating a beneficiary.

Nebraska lawmakers unanimously approved changes to collective bargaining for public workers on May 25 but the debate was not as divisive as in some other states, and the outcome was a compromise.

Attention to unclaimed property issues affecting life insurance companies – including issues relating to unpaid life insurance and annuity benefits – has significantly escalated in recent weeks, due to regulatory actions, media coverage, and public expressions of interest by the plaintiffs’ bar. This Legal Alert discusses those developments and puts them into perspective.

The Supreme Court explained that the requisite level of harm for a particular case will be dependent upon the applicable equitable theory of relief. If a plaintiff can satisfy one of the standards, it may then be rebutted by the defendant, if the defendant can demonstrate that the inconsistency was a harmless error.

Employers seem to be especially challenged by the duty to accommodate religious beliefs, and the EEOC appears to be particularly interested in pursuing enforcement of the accommodation requirement.

A Rhode Island state court has upheld a statute under which insurance companies that want to wind up their operations can buy policies back from policyholders.

What could be simpler than merely indicating to whom or to what entity a participant wishes their assets to be transferred in the event of death? Unfortunately, numerous issues arise in connection with the simple task of designating a beneficiary.

Simplicity should be a key goal in plan design, plan objectives and participant communications. Regulations make this challenging, but the benefits of simplicity are many.

The only things certain in life are death and taxes," Ben Franklin famously said. If you file a Form 5500 on behalf of your company's pension or health and welfare plans, the filing deadline for calendar-year plans is July 31. There are a number of changes in store for plan years 2010 (and any years prior that have not yet been filed) that might cause you to allow more than the usual preparation time.

Until recently, I directed a corporate benefits department and was responsible for complying with the legislation that affected my organization's benefits program. There were mountains of legislation, and while my staff and I were able to handle it effectively, we definitely struggled to keep abreast of everything we needed to do. Then came the law that broke the camel's back: health care reform.

Over two days of hearings in March, the Department of Labor heard from almost 40 retirement industry players on its proposed rule to update the definition of the term "fiduciary" under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The agency also has received over 200 public comments on the proposal.

Employee benefit plan sponsors, fiduciaries and administrators that are using or interested in expanding the use of e-mail, automated phone systems, websites or other electronic media to communicate with plan participants and beneficiaries should review and share their input with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) in response to its Request for Information regarding electronic disclosure. The deadline is June 6.