Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DOL NEWS—EBSA updates priorities for enforcing employee benefits laws, (Apr 15, 2026)
Organizations Mentioned:Employee Benefits Security Administration | U.S. Department of Labor
By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.
“EBSA investigators should seek out and target cases where the Department can make the most significant difference in addressing harm to plan participants and beneficiaries -- particularly when there is direct evidence of disloyalty or impermissible conflicts of interest.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration has issued a Field Assistance Bulletin (No. 2026-01) clarifying its enforcement priorities and guiding principles. Based on a recent evaluation, EBSA has updated the priorities of its enforcement program to focus on the security of employee benefits while informing the regulated community.
The FAB sets forth EBSA’s enforcement priorities and four guiding principles that are designed to ensure that EBSA’s enforcement is fair, even-handed, responsive, and focused.
Priorities. The priorities include focusing enforcement on the most egregious conduct and significant harm; ensuring whenever possible that EBSA is not regulating by enforcement; requiring senior agency official review of all critical enforcement initiatives; and committing that EBSA’s enforcement will be timely and responsive.
“This update to our enforcement program makes it clear that our focus is on true bad actors whose actions harm the benefits American workers and retirees have earned for themselves and their families,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security Daniel Aronowitz. “We will no longer be second-guessing the prudent discretionary judgement of fiduciaries but instead will have even-handed and fair enforcement with a close relationship to the language of the law, guidance issued by the Department of Labor, or clearly established case law.”
Duty of loyalty breaches. Specifically, in civil enforcement, EBSA will prioritize investigations where the facts-at-issue support a breach of the duty of loyalty, which requires actions be taken “for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries.” While it notes that it will continue to enforce both the duties of loyalty and prudence under ERISA, it explains that a significant percentage of its enforcement resources “must be focused on enforcement of loyalty breaches, or direct evidence of non-exempt prohibited transactions that involve impermissible conflicts of interest.”
“In sum,” the bulletin explains, “EBSA investigators should seek out and target cases where the Department can make the most significant difference in addressing harm to plan participants and beneficiaries -- particularly when there is direct evidence of disloyalty or impermissible conflicts of interest.”
No novel theories. It also requires that “novel legal theories or interpretations of ERISA should not be first articulated during enforcement actions. Instead, they should be subject to the ordinary regulatory and sub-regulatory processes.”
Thus, in all but pre-approved exceptional circumstances, the factual predicate for all enforcement activity must have a close nexus to the plain language of ERISA’s text, clearly established guidance in final Department regulations or prominently published sub-regulatory guidance, or clearly established case law.
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