US Department of Labor ERISA Enforcement Spring 2026 Updates

This LawFlash discusses recent developments on the US Department of Labor’s activities regarding ERISA violations, including the department’s stated intent to depart from “regulation by enforcement” and updates to its official enforcement priorities and statistics on enforcement accomplishments.

The US Department of Labor (Department or DOL) maintains a robust investigatory program for investigating employee benefit plans for potential violations of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), focused especially on ERISA’s fiduciary duties.

This LawFlash provides a summary of recent enforcement activities by the Department, including the following key developments:

• The Department’s current leadership continues to state that it intends to move away from “regulation by enforcement.”
• The Department recently announced updates to its official enforcement priorities, and some of the changes reflect material shifts.
• The Department updated its statistics on its enforcement accomplishments. By examining trends related to these, it is possible to extrapolate some sense of how active enforcement has been, and likely future DOL priorities. The statistics suggest some slowing down of enforcement activities (or at least recoveries).

DOL ENFORCEMENT REFRAME

The present leadership of the Department has made clear that it intends to move its enforcement program away from “regulation by enforcement.” For example, in his first public address as head of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) (the agency in charge of title I ERISA enforcement), Daniel Aronowitz stated directly that the era of “regulation by enforcement” and “regulation by litigation” is over.[1] He expects the Department to be more focused on compliance assistance, filing more amicus briefs and engaging in formal rulemaking.

While this does not mean the Department will stop enforcement investigations and litigations, it could impact how those investigations proceed. For example, we could see less aggressive approaches and substantive positions, and a willingness by the Department to work towards greater voluntary resolution.

In April 2026, the Department further articulated this shift in enforcement philosophy through the issuance of Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 (FAB 2026-01), titled Guiding Principles for EBSA Enforcement Priorities. Although directed towards EBSA investigators, FABs often provide important insight into how the agency intends to administer its enforcement program. In this case, FAB 2026-01 outlines a set of guiding principles intended to ensure that enforcement is “fair, even-handed, responsive, and focused,” while emphasizing transparency and consistency in EBSA’s approach.

At a high-level, FAB 2026-01 reflects an apparent effort by Department leadership to move away from broad or aggressive enforcement strategies and toward a more targeted and disciplined approach. FAB 2026-01 identifies four primary priorities for enforcement activity:

• Focus on Egregious Conduct and Significant Harm: FAB 2026-01 states that EBSA investigators should focus enforcement resources on matters involving the most significant participant harm and fiduciary misconduct. Specifically, FAB 2026-01 explains that investigators should “seek out and target cases where the Department can make the most significant difference in addressing harm to plan participants and beneficiaries.”
• Avoiding “Regulation by Enforcement”: Consistent with recent public statements by Department leadership, FAB 2026-01 emphasizes that EBSA intends, where possible, to avoid creating new regulatory obligations through investigations or litigation. Instead, the Department indicates that it prefers to communicate new or evolving interpretations through formal guidance or rulemaking. At the same time, FAB 2026-01 makes clear that this does not represent a retreat from enforcement activity entirely, specifically identifying continued enforcement focus in areas such as health benefit rules, disclosure obligations, and claims processing requirements.
• Greater Coordination and Senior-Level Review: FAB 2026-01 also emphasizes increased oversight of significant or novel enforcement matters. Under the guidance, matters involving new legal theories, departures from prior agency interpretations, or broader policy implications are expected to receive senior-level review. This may lead to greater consistency in enforcement positions across regional offices and reduce the likelihood of region-specific interpretations.
• Timely and Efficient Investigations: FAB 2026-01 identifies promoting timely and efficient investigations as a key enforcement priority. The Department states that it intends to streamline investigative processes, reduce unnecessary delays, and promote faster resolution of enforcement matters. In practice, this may translate into more targeted requests for information and shorter investigative timelines.

Taken together, FAB 2026-01 and Aronowitz’s public statements suggest a broader recalibration of the Department’s enforcement program toward a more focused, coordinated, and risk-based approach.

DOL ENFORCEMENT PRIORITIES REFRESH

In January 2026, the Department announced updates to its official priorities that guide its program of enforcement of ERISA’s fiduciary duty and prohibited transaction rules. The Department maintains these enforcement priorities to outline the agency’s areas of focus for investigations. In announcing the priorities, the Department described the changes as “the most significant” set of updates the Department “has made in recent years.” By framing the changes this way, the Department appears to want to make clear its intent to forge a new era for its enforcement program.

For plan sponsors and fiduciaries, these developments provide insight into emerging enforcement trends and identify areas where strengthened compliance practices may help limit regulatory exposure. The updated priorities contain some notable changes, especially the removal of its employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)enforcement program. Other updates reinforce a continuation of historic areas of focus, and do not represent a material change.

ESOP Enforcement Removed

A significant update is that after decades, the Department has removed the enforcement of ESOPs from one of its official priorities. This could represent a watershed moment because investigations of ESOPs have been a primary focus for decades. But it remains to be seen whether the Department will fully cease all reviews of ESOPs or simply lessen the focus.

Cybersecurity

The new enforcement priorities include a number of areas that are best thought of as “evolved” areas of focus: they are areas the DOL has been conducting investigations in but are now “official” priorities.

A clear example of this is cybersecurity. The new enforcement priorities identify cybersecurity investigations as an official priority for the first time. The Department describes this initiative as follows:

This project addresses the growing risks cyberattacks pose to employee benefit plans and participants. It promotes best cybersecurity practices for plans and service providers to protect sensitive information and reduce the risk of fraud and financial loss. As part of its investigations, EBSA reviews how plans and service providers protect their systems and data from cyber threats. This project builds on cybersecurity guidance issued in 2021 and updated in 2024.

It should be noted that the Department has been conducting these types of cybersecurity investigations for several years. The change now is that this is an official priority.

Based upon what the DOL has said about this area—and past investigations—the Department is likely to continue to focus on cybersecurity risk management, with investigations assessing whether plan fiduciaries have adopted reasonable safeguards, including written data protection policies and incident detection procedures.

Continuing Priorities

A number of the Department’s enforcement priorities are not new but are merely a continuation of prior areas of focus. These include the below.

‘Major Case Enforcement’ Priority

This is a “National Enforcement Priority” (the highest level of priority). The Department describes it as a focus of “enforcement resources on areas that have the greatest impact on the protection of plan assets and participants' benefits.” Through it, the Department is “dedicated to strategically focusing more investigative resources on professional fiduciaries and service providers with responsibility for large amounts of plan assets and the administration of large amounts of plan benefits.”

In practice, this translates into the Department focusing its resources strategically—for example, focusing on large service providers (i.e., “book of business” reviews).

This is not new. It has been a National Enforcement Priority for several years. However, in announcing the enforcement priorities, the Department emphasized the importance of its efforts to focus on more major priorities: “By recalibrating the areas our investigators focus on, EBSA investigations will be more efficient, responsive, and prioritize serious misconduct rather than minor foot faults.”

‘Employee Contributions’ Initiative

Similarly, this initiative has also been a National Enforcement Priority for several years. The Department describes this as focused on “the investigation of delinquent employee contributions,” “[c]onsistent with its long history of protecting employee contributions to 401(k), health care, and other contributory plans.”

Retirement Asset Management

This project is largely a renamed continuation of prior enforcement projects that are focused on investment related decision-making. The Department describes this project as focused on “protecting retirement income by ensuring fiduciaries select and monitor plan investments prudently.” The Department wants to offset “[p]oor investment choices, high fees, and conflicts of interest [which] can reduce participants’ future retirement income.” The Department identifies that in these investigations, it “reviews whether fiduciaries act prudently and avoid conflicts of interest when choosing investment options, monitoring performance, and managing fees.”

Going back to 2016 with the “Plan Investment Conflicts Project (PIC),” the Department has been focused on investment decisions, and related conflicts of interest by fiduciary service providers to ERISA plans and around ERISA plan assets, such as the following:

• Conflicts of interest that may lead to conflicted decision-making processes, imprudent application of investment guidelines, and payment of excessive fees
• Service providers (such as advisors, insurance brokers, etc.) collecting higher-than-disclosed fees or improper compensation from ERISA plan assets
• Prohibited transactions involving investments
• Whether plan assets are being used to pay nonplan expenses
• Fraud, kickback, and embezzlement involving investment managers and advisers to plans and participants
• Improper or undisclosed compensation, such as undisclosed indirect compensation
• Whether a plan’s fiduciaries are adequately engaging in due diligence related to such plan investments and service providers in order to address conflicts of interest

The Retirement Asset Management initiative is a continuation of this focus. The Department breaks it down into three areas of focus:

• 3(21) and 3(38) fiduciaries: The Department describes its intent to focus on “the actions of 3(21) and 3(38) fiduciaries at a service provider level and through its investigations of 404(c) plans and underfunded defined benefit plans. These reviews look for conflicts of interest, including efforts to increase compensation or direct investments to affiliated funds.” Also, the Department “will continue to conduct criminal investigations of potential fraud, kickback, and embezzlement involving investment managers and advisers to plans and participants.”
• Underfunded defined benefit plans: This focus does not appear to be new. In recent years, there have been multiple examples of defined benefit plans being subject to investigations, particularly regarding investments. As an official enforcement priority, the Department identifies that
  • it will focus “investigative resources on underfunded defined benefit plans because participants face a high risk of reduced or lost benefits,”
  • it “wants to ensure plans do not pursue risky or unsuitable investment strategies as a way to improve funding status,” and
  • it intends to examine “systemic risks across the entire portfolio and review[] the procedures fiduciaries use to adopt and monitor the investment strategy.”
• 404(c) Plans: This initiative is new and it remains to be seen how it will develop. The Department describes it as follows: “Because most participants rely on 404(c) plans for their retirement savings, EBSA reviews whether fiduciaries follow a reasonable process when choosing and overseeing the plan’s investment lineup.” Issues with these processes may be common, especially in midsize plans that may lack the resources of larger plans.”

Protecting Benefit Distributions

A central focus of the Department’s enforcement program has always been, and remains, ensuring that participants receive the retirement benefits to which they are entitled. This initiative is focused on that, specifically: ensuring “participants receive the benefits they are owed.” Through this initiative, the Department continues to examine whether plans have implemented effective procedures to locate participants, maintain accurate records, and distribute benefits in a timely manner. This initiative has a few components:

• Terminated Vested Participants: This is the present name for the Department’s “missing participant” investigations. This initiative began around 2016 and through it, the Department continues to review whether defined benefit plans maintain adequate census data and use reasonable methods to contact former employees who have earned vested benefits but have not yet begun receiving payments. Investigations are expected to continue to assess whether plans provide appropriate notices as participants approach normal retirement age or required minimum distribution age and whether plans have adopted reasonable search practices. Notably, in a speech in June 2026, Aronowitz announced that the agency will de-emphasize missing-participant cases, stating, “We will no longer make plan sponsors spend more than account balances in futile, repeated searches for missing participants.”
• Distressed Plan Sponsors: Through this, the Department is expected to continue to focus on employers experiencing financial difficulty, including bankruptcy or receivership, in order to prevent delayed contributions, improper expense payments, and interruptions in benefit distributions.
• Custodial and Abandoned Plans: Through this, the Department is expected to remain focused on identifying and addressing so called “abandoned” plans, including assessments of whether custodial service providers have implemented appropriate procedures to protect participant interests. Enforcement actions in this area may address unreasonable or prohibited fees and improper handling of abandoned plan assets.

Contributory Plans Criminal Project

This is another enforcement area that is not new. As the Department has historically, it intends to focus on serious criminal misconduct involving participant contributions to employer-sponsored benefit plans, such as matters involving embezzlement, false reporting, and other criminal violations.

Health and Welfare Enforcement Priorities

In announcing its newest priorities, the Department identified that it will continue to focus its enforcement around a number of key health and welfare plan priorities. This is consistent with the Department’s focus over the last few years, which has emphasized enforcement around health and welfare benefits. These priorities include the following:

• Mental health and substance use disorder parity: The Department identifies that it will continue enforcement of mental health parity rules, such as focusing on barriers to mental health or substance use disorder benefits, and whether parity exists between mental health and medical benefits. Areas of concern include unjustified treatment exclusion, claims processes, unreasonable limits on care, and compliance with required parity analyses.
• Surprise billing compliance: The Department outlines that it will continue to focus on investigations tied to the No Surprises Act (NSA), which is designed to protect individuals from unexpected medical bills in situations where they typically cannot choose their provider. This includes whether health plans treat emergencies appropriately, including applying in-network cost sharing to such services, and providing proper notice and disclosures.
• MEWAs: Although not a national project, the Department identifies that it will continue its long-standing work to identify and shut down abusive Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements (MEWAs) and prevent fraudulent MEWA operators.

We covered these enforcement priorities further in our prior LawFlash.

NEW DOL ENFORCEMENT STATISTICS

Each year, EBSA shares statistics on its enforcement accomplishments. By examining trends related to these, it is possible to extrapolate some sense of how active enforcement has been as well as priorities.

In January 2026, the Department issued its new annual statistics (covering the 2025 fiscal year). The Department reports that it recovered about $1.4 billion, broken down as follows:

• $714.4 million from enforcement actions
• $468.7 million through informal complaint resolutions
• $117.3 million from the Abandoned Plan Program
• $39.1 million from the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program
• $67 million from compliance with the NSA

Overall, the total number of $1.4 billion is in line with recoveries from fiscal year 2024. However, when viewing the line items, there is a slight decrease in recoveries from “enforcement actions,” which was $741.9 million in fiscal year 2024. This follows a reduction from 2023, where enforcement recoveries were $844.7 million, which suggests some slowing down by the Department of enforcement activities (or at least recoveries).

Another notable difference is that the 2025 fact sheet specifically highlights activities and recoveries attributable to the NSA, specifically 27,000+ inquiries with $67 million in benefits paid, a category not highlighted in the 2024 totals. This is consistent with the Department’s focus on NSA enforcement, described above.

HOW WE CAN HELP

We stand ready to assist organizations and plans that are currently under DOL investigation or that have questions about the Department’s enforcement activities. Our offerings include a DOL Investigation Internal Audit Risk Assessment to help anticipate and avoid potential disruption and/or liability from these DOL investigations. Through this internal audit service, we conduct a review to identify legal compliance issues and gaps before a DOL investigation. Following the internal audit, we can help fix identified compliance gaps.