The U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the federal agency responsible for enforcing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), just announced a major overhaul of its national enforcement projects and priorities for fiscal year 2026. These changes recalibrate the areas that receive heightened attention in EBSA investigations and audits of ERISA plans, ERISA fiduciaries, and ERISA plan service providers. 

The updated national enforcement priorities are:

• Cybersecurity of plan systems and data, focused on plans and service providers and building upon prior agency cybersecurity guidance.
• Barriers to mental health and substance use disorder benefits, extending beyond the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) and MHPAEA comparative analyses to include claims processing and provider networks and directories.
• Surprise billing under the No Surprises Act (NSA) and the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) prudent layperson standard for emergency services, including compliance with cost-sharing, prior authorization, and payment timeline mandates and coverage exclusions impacting emergency care.
• Protecting benefit distributions to ensure participants received benefits and extending to custodial service providers holding abandoned plan assets.
• Retirement asset management focused on ERISA 3(21) and 3(38) fiduciary decision-making and processes with respect to investment choices, funding, fees, and conflicts of interest in both defined contribution and defined benefit plans. 
• A contributory plans criminal project focused on protecting employee contributions from criminal abuse.
• A focus on multiple employer welfare arrangements (MEWAs) to identify and shut down abusive MEWAs and MEWA operators.

In addition, EBSA has removed several long-standing enforcement areas from its enforcement priority list, including Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and its Terminated Vested Participant (TVP) project.

How Miller & Chevalier can help plan sponsors, fiduciaries, and service providers:

• Compliance and readiness assessments in the new enforcement areas
• Governance updates, fiduciary committee guidance, training, and remediation plans tailored to fiduciary and other legal obligations
• Defense and resolution strategies for EBSA investigations and parallel criminal referrals

For more information about these new EBSA enforcement priorities or how Miller & Chevalier can assist you in mitigating risk in these areas, please contact Joanne Roskey, Practice Lead, ERISA and Employee Benefits Litigation. Prior to joining Miller & Chevalier, Joanne served as Deputy Associate Solicitor in the DOL's Plan Benefits Security Division and as Chief of Division of Health Investigations in EBSA's Office of Enforcement. She was also previously a Regional ERISA Counsel and Senior Trial Attorney at DOL.

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