Compliance December 31, 2007

EBSA Announces $1.5B in Monetary Enforcement Results

December 31, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Bradford P. Campbell, assistant secretary of labor for the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), on Monday announced that the agency achieved monetary results of $1.5 billion and 115 criminal indictments in fiscal year 2007.
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EBSA closed 3,236 civil investigations in Fiscal Year 2007, and nearly 75% of those resulted in correction of violations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the announcement said. The agency also achieved a 43% increase in the number of criminal investigations closed with either a guilty plea or with a criminal conviction.

Criminal investigations, in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, including the DoL’s Office of Inspector General, led to the indictment of 115 individuals for crimes involving pension, health, and other benefit programs.

According to the announcement, approximately $96 million of the 2007 results were achieved through informal complaint resolution under the agency’s participant assistance program. The Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program, used by employers, plan officials, service providers, and other fiduciaries to report and correct violations of ERISA, received 1,451 applications and produced $130 million in results.

A fact sheet on agency results is available on EBSA’s Web site at www.dol.gov/ebsa .

In addition, the DoL’s Wage and Hour Division announced record wage recovery for FY 2007. The 341,624 workers receiving recovered back wages is the second largest number since 1993, and the amount of those wages – $220,613,703 – is the highest ever, the announcement said.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) reported $32 million in court-ordered union fund restitutions for workers in FY 2007, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also reported a successful enforcement year.

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