EBSA’s “national enforcement projects” are agency‑wide investigation programs that focus its investigators on specific, high‑priority problem areas in employee benefit plans (for example, cybersecurity, surprise billing, or retirement asset management). EBSA’s enforcement page explains that it “focuses its enforcement resources where they can have the greatest impact on protecting plan assets and participants’ benefits” and that the national projects “highlight the priority areas that guide our enforcement work,” which for FY 2026 include cybersecurity, barriers to mental health and substance‑use‑disorder benefits, surprise billing, protecting benefit distributions, retirement asset management, and criminal abuse of contributory plans. EBSA decides which areas to include through its Strategic Enforcement Plan and annual risk assessments, selecting topics where it sees significant risks, abusive practices, or systemic non‑compliance that threaten participants’ benefits and where concentrated investigations are expected to produce broad compliance improvements and recoveries.
EBSA enforces Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and related provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the Affordable Care Act. Under ERISA sections 502 and 505, EBSA can investigate employee benefit plans and fiduciaries, require production of documents and testimony using subpoena authority, and review plan administration and investments. If it finds civil violations, EBSA can seek voluntary correction, assess civil penalties (for example under ERISA §502(l) and §502(c)), and, when necessary, file lawsuits in federal court seeking restitution of losses, removal of fiduciaries, injunctions, and other equitable relief. EBSA also refers criminal matters to the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys under ERISA’s criminal provisions and Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code (for example, 18 U.S.C. §§664, 1027, 1954) for offenses such as embezzlement, kickbacks, and false statements. EBSA’s enforcement manual and ERISA enforcement page emphasize that civil enforcement is aimed at restoring plan losses and improving compliance, while more egregious cases may lead to criminal prosecution and bars on serving as a plan fiduciary.
A Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangement (MEWA) is a health or other welfare benefit arrangement in which two or more unrelated employers pool contributions to provide benefits such as medical, disability, or life insurance to their employees. ERISA defines a MEWA as an employee welfare benefit plan or other arrangement established or maintained for the purpose of offering or providing medical or similar benefits to employees of two or more employers (other than certain union or collectively bargained plans). Some MEWAs are considered abusive or fraudulent because operators may underprice coverage, fail to maintain adequate reserves, misrepresent benefits, or divert premiums instead of paying claims, leaving workers with unpaid medical bills. EBSA notes that its investigations have uncovered “a range of fraud” in MEWAs and that it works to identify and shut down abusive MEWAs and prevent fraudulent operators from reopening in other states.
The Retirement Savings Lost and Found Database is a U.S. Department of Labor online tool created under the SECURE 2.0 Act to help individuals locate “lost” or forgotten retirement accounts from former employers. Plan administrators report identifying information about their plans and participants to EBSA, and workers can use the public database to search for plans that may still hold benefits owed to them and obtain contact details on how to claim those funds. EBSA’s enforcement page explains that the Lost and Found launched in FY 2025 and is intended to make it easier for terminated vested participants to receive benefits they are owed; because guidance and this centralized search tool are now in place, EBSA expects that the amount of enforcement action needed around missing participants will decrease, which is why its 2026 enforcement projects reduce the prior national focus on missing‑participant investigations.
“Protecting benefit distributions” refers to EBSA’s efforts to ensure that workers and retirees actually receive the retirement benefits they have earned when those benefits are due. EBSA’s Protecting Benefit Distributions (PBD) project focuses on four main areas: (1) terminated vested participants (former employees entitled to a pension who have not started receiving payments), making sure plans keep good records and notify them at normal retirement and required minimum distribution ages; (2) distressed plan sponsors (for example, employers in bankruptcy) where financial trouble can lead to missed contributions or unpaid claims; (3) custodial abandoned plans, where service providers continue charging or increasing fees on plans whose sponsors have effectively disappeared; and (4) fully abandoned plans, where fiduciaries have stopped carrying out their duties. Misconduct or problems that can trigger PBD investigations include failing to locate or notify participants, not starting required distributions, misusing or over‑charging plan assets (especially in abandoned plans), failing to make required contributions, or otherwise neglecting fiduciary duties so that earned benefits go unpaid.
For EBSA, “surprise billing” is defined by the federal No Surprises Act (NSA) as situations where patients receive unexpected out‑of‑network medical bills—often called balance bills—after they reasonably thought they were getting in‑network care. This includes most emergency services (including air ambulance), and certain non‑emergency services provided by out‑of‑network clinicians at in‑network hospitals or similar facilities. EBSA’s enforcement description states that it focuses on whether group health plans and insurers: apply in‑network cost‑sharing to NSA‑protected services; comply with the “prudent layperson” standard for emergencies; provide required notices; follow prohibitions on prior authorization and restrictive administrative requirements; and meet payment and dispute‑resolution timelines. NSA implementation and enforcement are shared among the Department of Labor (EBSA) for private employer plans, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury/IRS; coordination is reflected in joint regulations and guidance and in cross‑agency implementation status reports.
Removing Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) from EBSA’s national enforcement project list means ESOPs will no longer be a top, agency‑wide targeted category for investigations, but it does not eliminate ESOP oversight or employers’ fiduciary duties. The 2026 DOL news release states that ESOPs were “removed from the national enforcement project list,” while the enforcement page makes clear that EBSA continues broader retirement asset‑management and fiduciary‑duty investigations. Practically, this signals that EBSA expects to devote fewer specially targeted resources to ESOP‑specific issues compared with past years and instead focus on higher‑priority risks (for example, cybersecurity or surprise billing). ESOP sponsors and fiduciaries must still comply with ERISA’s prudence, loyalty, and prohibited‑transaction rules, and EBSA can and does investigate ESOPs under its general enforcement authority if complaints, transaction data, or other risk indicators suggest problems, even though ESOPs are no longer singled out as a national project.
When EBSA contacts a plan sponsor, fiduciary, service provider, or participant during an investigation, they should expect a formal, document‑intensive but generally non‑public process. EBSA typically opens a civil investigation by sending an initial contact letter (or subpoena) describing the scope of the review and listing documents and data to be provided by a set deadline. Investigators may conduct interviews, request follow‑up records, and, in health‑plan cases, test compliance with specific rules such as NSA or mental‑health‑parity requirements. EBSA’s enforcement materials emphasize that the agency seeks voluntary correction first: if it finds violations, it usually gives fiduciaries an opportunity to restore losses, adjust procedures, and pay any applicable penalties. If parties are uncooperative or refuse to correct violations, EBSA can escalate to litigation or, in criminal cases, referral to prosecutors. Best practice for those contacted is to respond promptly and completely, coordinate responses through knowledgeable personnel or counsel, preserve all relevant records, and maintain open communication with EBSA to resolve issues efficiently, as the agency itself urges in the 2026 enforcement‑projects announcement.