EBSA Cracking Down on Contribution Fraud

The actions were announced along with the EBSA’s Employee Contributions Initiative, part of the agency’s Contributory Plans Criminal Project. A news release said the Contributory Plans Criminal Project is the agency’s first national criminal enforcement project targeting people who commit fraud and abuse against participants and beneficiaries of contributory employee benefit plans.  

The enforcement cases represent civil cases filed in federal district courts across the country to protect the contributions made by employees and matching contributions promised by their employers. In these cases, workers had contributions to their pension or health plans withheld from their paychecks, but the employers did not deposit those contributions in the plans. Instead, the employers kept the workers’ contributions and used them for their own purposes or other purposes unrelated to the plans, according to the news release.