Although high-profile racially charged incidents in recent years have led to a surge in corporate pledges and investments toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the forward movement toward these goals has stalled. DEI leaders who have spearheaded this diversity work have focused on three key reasons why well-intentioned DEI initiatives have failed.
Failure to Explicitly Connect DEI Objectives to the
Law 360 (November 18, 2022, 5:44 PM EST) —
The U.S. Department of Labor has vowed to continue its aggressive enforcement of a law requiring employer health plans to provide equal coverage for mental health and addiction treatments and other types of medical care, despite expected political pressure from the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives.
The Paul Wellstone and Pete
Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in a pending ERISA class action lawsuit to include state law claims by the American Medical Association (AMA), the Medical Society of New Jersey, and the Washington State Medical Association. The original individual plaintiffs were participants in CIGNA-administered health plans and received medical care from physicians in the MultiPlan network.
Physicians in the MultiPlan network
The DOL, HHS, and IRS have finalized portions of the regulations concerning the independent dispute resolution (IDR) process of the No Surprises Act. The agencies also have provided a fact sheet summarizing the finalized regulations. Congress enacted the No Surprises Act as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA) to address various issues involving surprise medical billing. The
Companies that are planning mass layoffs or reductions in force (RIF) must comply with the often-complex requirements of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Many states and even municipalities have enacted their own “mini-WARN Acts” that may impose different or additional requirements on employers who intend to conduct layoffs.
The Federal WARN Act
The WARN Act requires covered
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has proposed individual exemptions to prohibited transaction restrictions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The proposed transaction exemptions would cover about $600 million in payments made by 11 benefit pension plans, sponsored by independent licensees of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA). Without the
A judge in a Massachusetts federal court has dismissed four of the nine claims in a 2021 wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former employee against a lighting company and selected company employees. Among the claims that the judge dismissed were Ahmed Eissa’s allegations that Ledvance LLC discriminated against him based on his sex and ethnicity when they terminated him
McDonald’s has settled a class action lawsuit for $156,783.00 over allegations that it failed to provide former employees with sufficient notice of continued health insurance coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). Class members consist of 9,000 former employees, all of whom received the deficient COBRA notices between December 15, 2017, and February 9, 2021, and did not
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision of a Texas federal court, finding that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) had acted arbitrarily in finding a company’s health insurance plan to be exempt from ERISA. The case is Data Marketing Partnership v. LABR, case number 20-11179 (August 17, 2022).
Data Marketing Partnership (“Data Marketing”)
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued a proposal in July 2022 to tighten the rules allowing asset managers to oversee retirement plans. More specifically, the proposal would make changes to the Qualified Professional Asset Manager (QPAM) exemption to prohibited transactions under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The QPAM exemption allows banks, savings