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
The IRS has issued long-awaited final regulations regarding the requirement included in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 that catch-up contributions made during a plan year under a 401(k) or 403(b) plan by participants with FICA wages from the employer sponsoring the plan during the prior calendar year that exceed a specified dollar amount may
A rapidly growing line of ERISA cases seeks to impose fiduciary standards of conduct—developed by courts largely in the retirement plan context—to health plan design choices. The most recent, Barbich et al. v. Northwestern University et al., No. 1:25-cv-06849 (N.D. Ill.) filed on June 20, 2025, involves a new and potentially disruptive twist: plaintiffs