ML BeneBits

As employers begin to consider returning to the workplace, options related to testing and vaccinations are top of mind. Related to potential home-testing options, our FDA team has published a LawFlash on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for the first over-the-counter (OTC) COVID-19 test to be performed at home, the first OTC home sample collection kit for COVID-19 testing, and additional prescription at-home tests and sample collection kits.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) published three long-awaited pieces of sub-regulatory guidance on January 12 regarding the issues of missing participants and uncashed checks. Plan fiduciaries now have some clearer guideposts on their obligations in this area.

The ongoing effort to provide relief for troubled multiemployer pension plans took many twists and turns in 2020, and the year ended once again without an agreed-upon solution.

As we addressed in our recent LawFlash covering the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Act), the Act includes several requirements to enhance group health plan transparency. One provision we wanted to further highlight relates to the new requirements to show compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Mental Health Parity).

Since 2012, US Department of Labor (DOL) regulations under ERISA Section 408(b)(2)—a statutory exemption from the ERISA prohibited transaction provisions—have required certain service providers to employer-sponsored retirement plans to make detailed disclosures about their services and related “direct” and “indirect” compensation to a “responsible plan fiduciary” of the plan.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 was signed into law on December 27, 2020. Two of our recent LawFlash publications discuss the health and welfare provisions and the expansion of the employee retention credit, respectively. Read our discussions here:

San Francisco voters on November 3 approved Proposition L, which imposes an additional tax on businesses whose highest paid executive makes 100 times or more than the median salary of the business’s employees based in San Francisco.

To alleviate plan sponsor financial burdens during the height of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Section 3608 of the CARES Act delayed the due date for required minimum contributions for defined benefit pension plans otherwise due in 2020.

There was an important development recently in the US Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) efforts to regulate ERISA plan fiduciaries’ use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisionmaking. On October 30, the DOL announced publication of the final version of its proposed Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments rule (the Rule). A fact sheet is also available.

The US Department of Labor (DOL) released its 2020 statistics on ERISA enforcement activities on October 27, affirming that the agency’s investigations remain robust. In sharing the statistics, the DOL not only boasted that it had restored $3.1 billion to employee benefit plans, participants, and beneficiaries, but also that this amount is the “most ever” that the agency has recovered in one year.