Employment

Last year, the Department of Labor and the Treasury Department/IRS (Departments) issued guidance on the application of certain of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance market reforms to health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), certain health flexible spending arrangements (health FSAs) and certain other employer health care arrangements.

Since 2007, most Massachusetts residents have been required to either obtain health insurance coverage meeting Massachusetts “minimum creditable coverage” standards, or pay a state tax penalty (for 2014, the penalty ranges from $240 to $1104 per year, depending on income).

In a previous post, we described an Affordable Care Act compliance strategy—referred to commercially as a “minimum value plan” or “MVP”—that involves an offer of group health plan coverage that, while similar in most respects to traditional major medical coverage, carves out inpatient hospital services.

Following up on a topic discussed recently in this space, a class action filed last month against LinkedIn represents just the latest development in the burgeoning battle over defining the permissible and impermissible uses of big data in the employment arena.

Last week, we blogged about the EEOC’s recent litigations involving employee wellness programs, including the Honeywell case where the EEOC sought to prohibit Honeywell from penalizing employees who decline to participate in the company’s wellness program.

In the wake of the NLRB’s aggressive crackdown on social media policies, many employers have asked: “Is there any limit to what employees can post on social media about their employers?”  It appears that there is.

In a surprise move, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an indefinite delay in enforcement of regulations pertaining to “health plan enumeration and use of the Health Plan Identifier (HPID) in HIPAA transactions” that would have otherwise required self-funded employer group health plans (among other “covered entities”)

My colleague Patty Moran authored an advisory about reviewing Sarbanes-Oxley Blackout Notice Rules when changing a 401(k) investment fund. The advisory describes the origin of the Blackout Notice Rules, the rules’ requirements and penalties for noncompliance, and next steps.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking a hard look at employers who implement employee wellness programs that condition eligibility for benefits on participation in such programs. In the past few months, the EEOC sued three employers claiming that their wellness programs violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A Federal court in New York recently provided some pleading parameters for employers for claims of tortious interference with business relations.

One of your company’s 401(k) investment fund options is underperforming. Or, perhaps the fund is no longer appropriate for your employees. Or, perhaps a fund’s wildly successful fund manager has jumped ship to another fund company, investors are fleeing the fund in droves, and you do not want your plan to be last off the sinking ship.

My colleague, Jen Rubin, has posted on LinkedIn an interesting article on the kind of information that an ex-employee may—or may not—be free to use for the benefit of a new employer.

Applicable large employers faced with the prospect of complying with the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules must grapple with and understand what it means to make an offer of minimum essential coverage under an eligible employer-sponsored [group health] plan to their full-time employees.

My colleague Rob Sheridan was quoted in an SHRM article entitled Big Data Only as Good as Data In, in which he comments on the HR and legal implications of both internal and external use of big data by employers. The article focuses on the new trend of big data use in recruiting and hiring top talent, and its meaning in regards to the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The latest casualty to post-employment covenants came at the hands of a Connecticut trial court, which struck down a non-solicitation agreement under New York law as reaching beyond the legitimate business interests that deserve protection.

Under the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules, applicable large employers (those with 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) incur exposure for assessable payments under Internal Revenue Code § 4980H when an applicable premium tax credit

A recent non-compete case out of a New York County court offers employers valuable drafting tips on non-compete and non-solicitation provisions.

Last month, we reported that an Illinois district court judge threw out the EEOC’s controversial lawsuit against CVS seeking to invalidate its severance agreements. The judge there did so and promised to follow up with a written opinion.

A federal district court in Washington has confirmed that an employer’s relationship with the cows that its employees serviced is insufficient to establish a legitimate protectable interest to enforce a non-compete.

My colleague Mitch Danzig was quoted in a SHRM article entitled Employees’ Use of Sharing Economy Poses Risks in which he comments on the risk employers face when requiring employees to use shared economy services such as Uber or Airbnb.