Employment, Labor & Benefits

On Monday, Governor Cuomo signed into the law the last of four bills aimed at strengthening workplace protections for employees.  In mid-July, the Governor signed pay equity, salary history disclosure and hair discrimination laws into effect.  Now, the Governor has completed this effort by signing into the law a bill that makes significant changes to the New York Human Rights Law.

Federal law nowadays certainly favors enforcement of agreements to arbitrate.  But generally applicable state contract law determines contract formation – i.e., whether such an agreement has been made.

On June 18, 2019, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed into law Public Act 19-16, “An Act Combatting Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment,” also known as the “Time’s Up Act” (the “Act”). The Act involves several significant changes to Connecticut’s employment laws, with a particular focus on expanding sexual harassment prevention laws.

On June 13, 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of the Treasury (Treasury Department) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (collectively, the “Departments”) issued a coordinated set of final regulations (“final rules”). Entitled, “Health Reimbursement Arrangements and Other Account-Based Group Health Plans,” the final rules expand employers’ ability to offer health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) to their employees to be used in conjunction with individual market coverage and recognize a new type of excepted benefit HRA that allows employees to pay for HIPAA excepted benefits and short-term coverage. This post summarizes the final rules.

In an Executive Order issued on June 24, 2019, President Trump directed several agencies to address a number of health care related matters through regulation.  This focuses on Section 6 which takes aim at Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), health care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), and medical expenses generally.

On May 31, 2019, in Stein v. Blankfein, et. al., the Delaware Court of Chancery reaffirmed the Delaware Supreme Court’s holding in In re: Investors Bancorp, Inc. Stockholder Litigation (more information here) that the “entire fairness” standard applies with regard to director approval of director compensation. The Stein case builds on the precedent set in Investors Bancorp and provides additional insights.

Welcome to June! As we head into the summer, the employment law world continues to heat up! We have rounded up the most recent developments impacting employers for your summer reading pleasure here.

This post summarizes the requirements of MAPFML and outlines the requirements of the private plan exemptions.  We also explain some of the obstacles employers who hope to take advantage of the exemption are likely to encounter. 

This post explains how to set up and monitor a retirement plan fiduciary committee in a manner that insulates the plan sponsor’s board and senior management from unnecessary fiduciary exposure.

Our colleague Gil Samberg offers analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, which held that neither silence nor ambiguity in an arbitration agreement about whether it permits class arbitration enables a court to find that the parties agreed to allow class arbitration.  If the parties wish to permit class arbitration, they must expressly memorialize that understanding within the four corners of an agreement to arbitrate.