Publications

HHS Final Rule Amends HIPAA Privacy Rules Post-Dobbs

ELIZABETH LOH, June 27, 2024 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a final rule which amends the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rules (the “Final Rule”). HHS issued the Final Rule in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.  HHS explains […]

Read More

The Retirement Security Rule: Designed for Permanency?

YATINDRA PANDYA and ROBERT GOWER, June 27, 2024 Introduction On April 25, 2024 the Department of Labor (DOL) issued the final Retirement Security Rule (the “Final Rule”), providing a new regulatory definition of an “investment advice fiduciary” under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). The Final Rule looks to end the DOL’s […]

Read More

New Challenges to Pension Risk Transfers

STEPHANIE PLATENKAMP, April 30 2024 Plan sponsors have found it increasingly difficult to predict and manage the cost of their defined benefit pension plans (“DB plans”) due to fluc­tuating interest rates, investment returns, increased costs, and participant longevity. As a result, pension de-risking has become a common way for plan sponsors to manage risk and […]

Read More

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Clarifies Pleading Standards Applicable to Suits for Violations of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act

STEPHANIE LAO, April 30 2024 In Ryan S. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., 2024 WL 1561668 (9th Cir. Apr. 11, 2024), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned a California district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit brought on behalf of a putative class of group health plan participants against UnitedHealth Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries […]

Read More

The Cost of Drugs: Johnson & Johnson Lawsuit Could Signal the Opening of a New Area of ERISA Class Action Litigation Against Health Plan Fiduciaries

MARY POWELL, DYLAN RUDOLPH and SARAH KANTER, March 21 2024 Over the past two decades, fiduciaries of health plans governed by the Employee Retire­ment Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) have largely avoided involvement in the increasingly active area of “excessive fee” fiduciary breach litigation, which has mainly targeted fiduciaries of defined contribution retirement plans. […]

Read More

A Closer Look at Arbitration Provisions in ERISA Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims

BRIAN D. MURRAY and ANGEL L. GARRETT, December 19 2023 As plan sponsors increasingly look to arbitration provisions to avoid costly class action litigation, courts across the nation have weighed in on whether plan-wide claims for breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA § 502(a)(2) can be subject to mandatory arbitration.  ERISA § 502(a)(2) provides that […]

Read More