Groom principal Kara Petteway Wheatley will present a BARBRI CLE webinar on July 30, 2026, covering ERISA and non-ERISA compliance issues related to HSAs, FSAs, HRAs, and voluntary insurance programs, including legal risks, structuring strategies, and recent litigation trends. The session aims to help ERISA counsel understand employer and employee implications in these benefit plans.

IRS Notice 2026-33 offers important guidance on qualified long-term care distributions under SECURE 2.0, clarifying conditions that must be met for these penalty-free distributions to receive favorable tax treatment, highlighting that SECURE 2.0 implementation is still ongoing.

On July 16, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted a stay in City of Columbus v. Kennedy, enjoining key provisions of the 2027 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters Final Rule that plaintiffs argued would increase costs, reduce coverage comprehensiveness, and impose verification burdens. The stay blocks changes such as expanded eligibility for less comprehensive plans, higher cost-sharing limits for bronze plans, stricter income verification requirements, and diminished network adequacy standards, requiring CMS and issuers to adjust plans for the 2027 year accordingly.

On June 15, 2026, the PBGC clarified that an annuity buyout reducing active participant headcount by 20% or more does not trigger a reportable event under ERISA section 4043 if the employees are expected to remain employed, because such buyouts do not indicate financial distress and reduce PBGC’s risk. However, actual workforce reductions unrelated to the buyout still require reporting.

Two recent federal appellate court decisions—Reichert v. Kellogg Co. (Sixth Circuit) and Drummond v. Southern Company Services, Inc. (Eleventh Circuit)—held that ERISA’s actuarial-equivalence requirement demands reasonable actuarial assumptions rather than merely mathematically equivalent ones, although both remanded to district courts to determine actual reasonableness. In contrast, a District of Minnesota ruling in Adams v. U.S. Bancorp concluded ERISA does not require reasonable assumptions but found the plan’s assumptions reasonable, illustrating that reasonableness determinations may depend on expert testimony and specific plan facts.

The article "The Reality of ‘Frenemies’ in Provider Relationships" by Marcia Wagner discusses the complex dynamics in provider relationships, highlighting how collaboration and competition often coexist, influencing interactions and outcomes in the industry.

In PLANSPONSOR’s Ask the Experts series, legal and retirement plan professionals explain that Trump Accounts typically exist outside traditional retirement plans since current laws and guidance do not allow their inclusion; however, employers might offer them as separate pre-tax benefits while awaiting further IRS clarification.

A two-part webinar on August 25, 2026, will cover key year-end retirement and health plan tasks for sponsors, including amendments, notices, and reporting requirements ahead of open enrollment. Attorneys will provide guidance on priorities and resource allocation for these plans.

On July 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland heard arguments in City of Columbus v. Kennedy challenging CMS’s 2027 NBPP final rule, with the Court requesting supplemental briefs on disruption to the Marketplace and effects on current catastrophic plan enrollees. The Defendant argued that reinstating standardized plan requirements is impracticable and harmful to catastrophic enrollees, while Plaintiffs contended that reinstatement is feasible through updated guidance and enforcement discretion.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced Code section 101(a)(3) and reporting requirements under section 6050Y for “reportable policy sales” of life insurance contracts, clarified by 2019 and 2023 IRS regulations that standard section 1035 exchanges are not transfers for value under section 101(a)(2). Finalized in 2026, these rules confirm that 1035 exchanges and the definition of life insurance contracts remain unaffected while providing clarity on reporting obligations applicable to reportable policy sales after July 9, 2026.