MILWAUKEE – A federal judge has sentenced the former president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1295 – a dockworkers’ union known as the Milwaukee Grain Trimmers – to home confinement of 240 consecutive days, 2 years of probation, ordered to pay a $200 special assessment and $219,000 in restitution to the union and its employee benefit plan.

CLEVELAND, OH – A North Royalton businessman who failed to pay payroll taxes to the IRS and embezzled health care premiums deducted from his employees’ checks, will spend the next two years in prison and pay restitution of $558,697 to the IRS and $3,807 to the participants of his companies’ health care plan.

CLEARWATER, FL – Following a U.S. Department of Labor investigation, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky has sentenced Nitesh Patel to serve 12 months’ probation, including 12 months of home confinement following his Nov. 3, 2021, guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.

BALTIMORE – A federal court in Maryland has entered a consent judgment requiring a Baltimore logistics, engineering and management support company and its owner to restore $148,852 in missing contributions and interest to its 401(k) plan.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, the IRS and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. today released a Federal Register Notice announcing changes to the Form 5500 Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan and Form 5500-SF Short Form Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan, and related instructions, that apply beginning with 2022 plan year reports.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra met with health insurance and business leaders on May 3 to discuss compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, adequacy of in-network providers and mental health and substance use disorder treatment during the pandemic, as the nation observes Mental Health Awareness Month.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the appointment of seven members and leadership for the 2022 Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans, also known as the ERISA Advisory Council.

The 15-member council provides advice on policies and regulations affecting employee benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration today announced that the department is extending the public comment period for proposed amendments to its procedures governing the filing and processing of Prohibited Transaction Exemption Applications by an additional 45 days, through May 29, 2022.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today published compliance assistance for 401(k) plan fiduciaries considering plan investments in cryptocurrencies, in an effort aimed at protecting the retirement savings of U.S. workers.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration today announced proposed amendments in its procedures governing the filing and processing of Prohibited Transaction Exemption applications. 

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced a final notice of amendments to six class exemptions from the prohibited transaction rules in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code. 

CHICAGO – The U.S. Department of Labor has asked a federal court in Illinois to hold fiduciaries of the United Employee Benefit Fund, along with its counsel, liable for more than $2.8 million in losses after an investigation found they allowed the misappropriation of the fund’s assets. A Chicago-based multiple employer welfare arrangement, UEBF provides life insurance benefits to about 63 nationwide employer-sponsored benefit plans.

Date of action:                       February 18, 2022

Type of action:                      Appellee brief

Names of respondents:         Alight Solutions LLC

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced publication of a Request for Information seeking public comment on what actions, if any, the department should take under federal law to protect retirement savings and pensions from risks associated with changes in climate.

DETROIT – A federal judge has signed a consent order and judgment against a Madison Heights company and ordered fiduciaries of the company’s retirement plan to restore $50,764 in employee payroll-deducted retirement contributions and lost opportunity costs to the plan, and pay a $10,153 penalty for violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

WASHINGTON – The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury today issued their 2022 Report to Congress on the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

SAN FRANCISCO – Sixteen people participating in an employee retirement plan sponsored by a now defunct Danville construction company will receive distributions of almost $1 million in assets following an investigation and litigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.

SOMERSET, KY – For months, 11 employees at a Somerset home healthcare agency faced costly medical bills, unaware their employer had failed to remit contributions withheld from their wages to their healthcare plans, leading to a lapse in their medical insurance.

MINNEAPOLIS – The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered more than $9.3 million for participants of a Minneapolis manufacturing company’s employee stock ownership plan after the fund overpaid for company stock in 2011, under the terms of a consent judgment entered in a federal court.

BOSTON – An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor has led the fiduciaries of a Utica, New York, employee stock ownership plan to agree to return $431,000 to the plan’s participants and take action to resolve its Employee Retirement Income Security Act violations.