The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has released the results of its Employee Benefits Security Administration’s (EBSA) enforcement actions during fiscal year (FY) 2024.

Through its enforcement of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the EBSA oversees approximately 2.6 million health plans, 801,00 private pension plans, and 514,000 other welfare benefit plans. According to the audit, these plans cover 156 million workers, retirees and dependents.

Enforcement Statistics

In FY 2024, EBSA recovered nearly 1.4 billion dollars for plans, participants and beneficiaries. Other key EBSA enforcement results include the following:

• EBSA closed 729 civil investigations. Of these, 71% resulted in monetary results for plans or other corrective actions;
• EBSA referred 53 cases for civil litigation and closed 177 criminal investigations; and
• EBSA’s criminal investigations led to the indictment of 68 individuals and convictions or guilty pleas of 161 individuals—including plan officials, corporate officers and service providers—for offenses related to employee benefit plans.

Compliance Assistance Statistics

The DOL audit fact sheet also includes statistics for the EBSA’s compliance assistance programs, the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP) and the Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program (DFVCP).

The VFCP allows plan officials who have identified specified ERISA violations to take corrective action to remedy the breaches and voluntarily report the violations to EBSA without becoming the subject of an enforcement action. In FY 2024, EBSA processed 1,162 applications through the VFCP.

The DFVCP encourages plan administrators to bring their plans into compliance with ERISA’s filing requirements. EBSA received 20,009 annual reports through this program in FY 2024, and the EFAST2 Help Desk handled over 15,000 inquiries to help filers meet their reporting obligations.

Enforcement Resources

The EBSA has a dedicated enforcement webpage, which includes outlines of ERISA civil violations and criminal provisions, as well as enforcement accomplishments and national enforcement priorities and projects. There is also an agency enforcement results archive for prior fiscal years.

This Bulletin is not intended to be exhaustive nor should any discussion or opinions be construed as legal advice. Readers should contact legal counsel for legal advice. Design ©2025 Zywave, Inc. All rights reserved.