Few areas of retirement plan regulation have experienced as much turbulence – or generated as much practical uncertainty for plan sponsors, recordkeepers, and third-party administrators – as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (“ERISA”) definition of an “investment advice fiduciary.” After more than a decade of competing regulatory proposals, litigation victories and defeats, and
As described in earlier Thompson Hine blog posts (here and here), Trump accounts provide a new private savings vehicle for eligible minor children. The Treasury Department and IRS recently released additional guidance related to these accounts within two coordinated notices of proposed rulemaking that address the critical threshold questions of (1) how Trump
Thanks to SECURE 2.0, paper is back, requiring increased use of the traditional mail system through the United States Postal Service (“USPS”). A recently proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) from the Department of Labor (“DOL”) “narrowly implements” SECURE 2.0’s mandate requiring retirement plans to furnish paper pension benefit statements, effective
February 2026
On November 26, 2025, the District of New Jersey issued its latest ruling in Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson, granting Johnson & Johnson’s motion to dismiss the fiduciary breach claims for lack of Article III standing.
As a refresher, a class action lawsuit was filed by Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”) employees, against
The Department of Labor (DOL or the Department) recently announced its 2026 national enforcement projects, signaling changes in the administration’s enforcement priorities for this fiscal year. The Department identified priorities both with respect to health and welfare plans and retirement plans, as well as cybersecurity, although the Department has clearly shifted significant resources to health
Since the first quarter of 2024, 10 plan sponsors (along with named and independent fiduciaries) have been sued in 13 putative class actions challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), which are transfers to insurance companies of a portion or all of a defined benefit pension plan’s liabilities through the purchase of a group annuity contract. Generally