The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released its enforcement and benefit advisor program results for Fiscal Year 2019 on Thursday, in which it said $2.5 billion in payments were recovered for plans, participants and beneficiaries.
The government agency noted over $2 billion in recoveries from its investigations specifically.
EBSA’s criminal investigations led to the indictment of 76 individuals—including plan officials, corporate officers, and service providers—for offenses related to employee benefit plans.
Under its Terminated Vested Participant Project, EBSA “helped participants collect nearly $1.5 billion in retirement benefits owed to them in the form of lump-sum payments, present value of lifetime annuity payments and interest.”
The Office of Outreach, Education and Assistance returned $510 million to workers and their families through its informal complaint resolution process. The agency provided informal assistance to more than 166,000 individuals, many of whom were seeking assistance relating to benefits from retirement, health, and other employee benefit plans.
EBSA also conducts outreach to educate the public about employee benefits laws. Benefits advisors and other agency staff provided 1,788 outreach events in FY 2019. EBSA conducted 325 compliance assistance outreach events and 844 information sessions for dislocated workers across the country.
FY 2019 saw over 3.1 million visitors to EBSA’s website, and it distributed 376,991 publications.
EBSA continued to see large impacts in the termination of abandoned plans through the Abandoned Plan Program.
During the fiscal year, 661 plans made distributions totaling $33.2 million to participants under the program.
In addition, EBSA continued to reach out to plan fiduciaries and others to participate in the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP), and Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program to encourage the correction of ERISA violations.
These programs provide incentives for fiduciaries and others to self-correct by reducing or eliminating potential penalties and/or avoiding other adverse consequences.
EBSA received over 20,000 delinquent filings and 1,600 applications for the VFCP. VFCP corrections totaled $14.6 million during FY 2019.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
