EBSA’s Aronowitz Stresses Goal of Limiting Litigation, Speedy Finalization of Alts Rule

Daniel Aronowitz, head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, emphasized during the opening keynote speech of the 2026 PLANSPONSOR National Conference in Nashville on Monday that the agency will continue to prioritize reducing litigation burdens and intends to swiftly finalize its proposed rule on retirement plan investment selection—after reviewing comments.

In his remarks, Aronowitz framed the agency’s agenda as a sharp turn away from years of regulatory overreach and litigation-driven paralysis. He stressed that the U.S.’s voluntary, employer-sponsored benefits system depends on giving fiduciaries more room to exercise judgment without fear that every good-faith decision will be second-guessed in court.

“We want more employers to offer more benefits, and more inventive ones at that,” Aronowitz said in the speech.

One enforcement priority EBSA’s head cited as an example is the proposed rule on fiduciary duties in investment selection, including the use of private market and other alternative assets in defined contribution plans. Although the rule offers more than just a potential safe harbor for adding alternative investments, Aronowitz emphasized that plan sponsors should be able to introduce these “innovative” investment options. 

The agency has received more than 45,000 comments on the proposed rule. The comment period closes just before midnight Eastern Time on June 1.

Aronowitz emphasized that the rule is “asset neutral” and does not endorse private equity, private credit or any other investment product. Instead, he said, it would protect fiduciaries who follow a prudent process from hindsight-based litigation attacks.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act “is a law of process,” Aronowitz said, arguing that fiduciaries should receive “maximum deference” when they document a diligent decisionmaking process in the ways described by the proposed rule. 

Fiduciary Rule

Aronowitz also defended the DOL’s decision to restore the 1975 five-part test for determining when someone is an investment advice fiduciary. He said the DOL had ended what he called “fiduciary rule madness” after more than 15 years of shifting rules and court challenges. The SEC and state insurance regulators, he said, should regulate individual market activity involving individual retirement accounts and annuities, while EBSA focuses on employer-based retirement plans.

In April 2024, the administration of former President Joe Biden finalized the Retirement Security Rule, setting a new fiduciary standard that expanded fiduciary obligations under ERISA to include professionals providing one-time professional retirement investment advice. This included recommendations on rollovers into individual retirement accounts, annuity purchases and plan menu design.

The rule faced several legal challenges, and—during President Donald Trump’s current term—the DOL decided to stop defending the rule, which was officially vacated in March.

During his remarks, Aronowitz further stressed the agency’s priorities as related to proxy advisers and fiduciary obligations. He said retirement assets, as described in EBSA’s recent technical advice release, must be managed for the “exclusive purpose” of providing benefits and that “exclusive means exclusive.”

In April, the EBSA released guidance that stated proxy advisers “regularly fit the definition of functional fiduciaries” under ERISA.

Enforcement Reset

Aronowitz also underscored the agency’s attempt at an enforcement reset. Aronowitz pointed to EBSA’s Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01, which states that its investigators should prioritize egregious conduct, significant harm, criminal cases and participant contribution failures. He also said investigations would be subject to a “shot clock” and that open-ended probes dragging on for years are over.

The agency’s updated enforcement priorities include cybersecurity; mental health and substance use disorder benefits; benefit distributions; retirement asset management; surprise billing; and criminal abuse of contributory benefit plans. At the same time, Aronowitz said EBSA will de-emphasize missing-participant cases and employee stock ownership plan valuation investigations. Ending “the war on ESOPs” was a key point of his testimony during his confirmation hearings last year.

“We will no longer make plan sponsors spend more than account balances in futile, repeated searches for missing participants,” he said.

While Aronowitz outlined the agency’s agenda, which he stressed was pro-ERISA and not biased toward participants or plan sponsors, he saved some of his strongest language for ERISA class action lawsuits, particularly excessive fee, forfeiture and pension risk transfer cases. Regarding those types of cases, he argued that many legal complaints generate large attorneys’ fees, while participants receive modest recoveries, and that the threat of litigation discourages employers from adopting innovative plan designs. He compared the typical award a participant might receive in a settlement to the cost of a round of golf while coming at a significant cost to the employer providing the benefits.

He said EBSA is not trying to limit workers’ rights to sue when harm is real, but it will continue to file amicus briefs to push back against plaintiffs in cases the agency views as meritless or inconsistent with ERISA’s text. During Aronowitz’s tenure, the DOL has submitted several briefs in cases concerning plan forfeitures and pension risk transfers, for example. 

Aronowitz closed by casting EBSA’s agenda as a three-part promise: restore discretion to plan sponsors; end regulation by enforcement; and attack regulation by litigation.

“I oversee the best EBSA ever, and we are just getting started,” he said.