WASHINGTON – The U.S.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, the IRS and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. today released informational copies of the 2023 Form 5500, Form 5500-SF, IRS Form 5500-EZ, IRS Form 5558 and their related instructions online. 

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its Employee Benefits Security Administration will hold an online hearing beginning Dec. 12 on the agency’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Retirement Security Rule: Definition of an Investment Advice Fiduciary,” and related proposed prohibited transaction exemption amendments, published in the Federal Register on Nov. 3, 2023.

Date of Action:          Nov. 1, 2023

Type of Action:         Employee Retirement Income Security Act default judgment

Company/Owners:    Claddagh Development Group LLC, operating as Claddagh Irish Pubs

Claddagh Development Group LLC Employee Savings Trust

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that its Employee Benefits Security Administration has proposed a retirement security rule updating the definition of an investment advice fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Date of Action:          Oct. 26, 2023

 Type of Action:         Employee Retirement Income Security Act default judgment

Company/Owners:    Associated Community Services Inc. 

NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Labor has entered into a settlement agreement with EmblemHealth Inc., a New York-based insurer and third-party administrator of employment-based group health plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, resolving claims that Emblem breached its fiduciary duties under federal law by engaging in a practice known as “cross-plan offsetting.”

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a settlement with United of Omaha Life Insurance Co. that requires the company to revise how it administers its requirement that participants in employer-sponsored life insurance plans provide proof of good health — referred to as evidence of insurability — before obtaining coverage in certain instances. 

Date of action: September 28, 2023

Type of action: Employee Retirement Income Security Act consent order and judgment 

Names of defendants:           Sypris Solutions Inc. and

CHICAGO – A Chicago food service provider for major airlines has agreed to reimburse $134,222 to participants in the company’s employee health plan after federal investigators found the employer improperly charged employees deductibles for certain diagnostic tests and wrongly imposed tobacco surcharges.

PHOENIX – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $22.5 million from an employee stock ownership plan’s former trustee, Reliance Trust Company for the plan’s overpayment for a recreational vehicle rental company’s stock, after obtaining approval of a consent judgment in the U.S. District Court for Arizona on Aug. 30, 2023.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor announced that its Employee Benefits Security Administration is seeking nominations to fill five, three-year vacancies on the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans, known as the ERISA Advisory Council. The deadline to submit nominations is Oct. 23, 2023.

Date of Action:          Aug. 30, 2023

Type of Action:         Employee Retirement Income Security Act complaint filing

Company/Owners:   Virtual Matrix Corp.

Suman Thotakura

SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a default judgment to recover $153,768 for four people whose former employer abandoned its employee retirement plan more than two decades ago, leaving no one to administer the plan and authorize distribution of its funds, a violation of federal law.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that its Employee Benefits Security Administration will extend the grace period to obtain new Login.gov credentials for the EFAST2 filing system until Dec. 31, 2023, as part of the agency’s efforts to streamline the process for users.

CHICAGO – A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against the fiduciaries of a Chicago-based multiple employer welfare arrangement to protect the fund’s remaining assets after a Department of Labor investigation alleged its fiduciaries and counsel misused more than $2.8 million in fund assets, and that they continue to mismanage the fund.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a judgment barring a plan administrator and its CEO Shelley Steele from serving as fiduciaries or service providers to any plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, amid allegations they improperly paid themselves and affiliated businesses more than $100 million.

Date of Action:                      July 20, 2023

MADISON, WI – The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit against the nation’s largest third-party medical claims administrator for routinely denying healthcare claims for emergency room services and urinary drug screening for at least 2,136 self-funded employee welfare benefit plans.

SALT LAKE CITY – A federal court in Utah has issued a preliminary injunction ordering the removal of the CEO and co-owner of Ascent Construction Inc. in Farmington as trustee of the company’s employee stock ownership plan after the U.S. Department of Labor learned he used more than $300,000 in the plan’s employee retirement funds to pay company business expenses.