The guidance is particularly welcome because investigations often ended with DOL telling plan fiduciaries that their methods for locating missing plan participants were not in compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), even though DOL had not issued guidance yet. If an eligible party documents its correction and satisfies the terms of the program, EBSA won't issue an action letter and launch an investigation.ĭelinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program encourages pension and welfare plan administrators to file overdue annual reports (Form 5500), providing the opportunity to pay reduced civil penalties for voluntarily complying with the annual reporting requirements.ĮFAST2 Help Desk helps filers meet their reporting obligations.The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued long-awaited guidance on “missing plan participants,” roughly six years after the agency began investigating plan fiduciaries over the issue. Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program allows plan officials to voluntarily report and correct ERISA violations, such as prohibited purchases, sales and exchanges, improper loans, delinquent participant contributions and improper plan expenses. The 2021 enforcement statistics fact sheet also "for the first time includes specific information related to health and welfare plan enforcement actions," they noted, indicating that "the DOL is increasingly focused on investigations of health and welfare plans, especially around mental health parity act compliance." "As a result, we expect this will continue to be an area of DOL investigatory focus." "The Terminated Vested Participant Project (or missing participant investigations) continues to be a key focus of the DOL and a key driver of these recovery numbers," Goldberg and Rickard wrote. A growing area of interest, they noted, is Mental health parity and uncashed checks from They characterized the DOL as "an extremely active and evolving enforcement agency," which is increasingly focused on areas such as "The results for fiscal year 2021 underscore our commitment to assuring the security of the retirement, health and other workplace-related benefits of America's workers and their families."Ĭan expect the DOL to continue its robust investigation and enforcement program," wrote Elizabeth Goldberg, a partner in the Pittsburgh office of law firm Morgan Lewis, and Emily Rickard, an attorney in the firm's Philadelphia office. These inquiries recovered $499.5 million in benefits on behalf of workers and their families through informal resolution of individual complaints.ĮBSA "works diligently to ensure American workers, retirees and beneficiaries receive the benefits they have earned," said Acting Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Ali Khawar. Investigations this year led to 16,024 terminated vested participants in defined benefit pension plans collecting benefits of $1.548 billion owed to them.ĮBSA also said its benefits advisors answered more than 175,000 inquiries, many of which came through its toll-free number, 1-866-444-EBSA (3272), or These plans cover about 158 million workers and their dependents and include over $12.9 trillion in assets. Highlighted its enforcement actions, closed 1,072 civil investigations this year, 741 of which resulted in monetary payments to plans or other corrective actions.ĮBSA's oversight authority extends to nearly 734,000 retirement plans approximately 2 million health plans and 662,000 other welfare benefits plans, such as those providing life or disability insurance. The DOL's enforcement actions were brought against plan sponsors and service providers for failing to comply with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and other violations. Department of Labor (DOL) announced in December that this year its Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) recovered more than $2.4 billion in direct payments to employer-sponsored benefits plans, participants and beneficiaries.
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