Molly Nelson-Regan, Author at Spotlight on Benefits

Author: Molly Nelson-Regan

Molly Nelson-Regan counsels clients in litigation and dispute resolution. She assists in cases involving financial litigation, including ERISA matters, and has experience researching and drafting motions, overseeing subpoenas, preparing for depositions, and managing significant discovery, from collection to review. She also has worked on matters involving tribal affairs, including dealings with local and federal agencies, and briefing before federal district courts and state appellate courts.

President Trump is strongly critical of proxy advisory services and last year directed several federal agencies — including the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — to do something about it. In his December 11, 2025, executive order, President Trump stated that “proxy advisors regularly use their substantial power to advance and prioritize radical politically-motivated agendas — like ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ and ‘environmental, social, and governance’ — even though investor returns should be the only priority.¹

Even before the executive order, DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) drew a legal “line in the sand” regarding what one of its officials termed “politicized investing,”² reminding plan fiduciaries that ERISA does not permit them to “subordinate the interests of the participants and beneficiaries in their retirement income or financial benefits under the plan to other objectives.”³ More recently, EBSA Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz announced that EBSA will prioritize civil investigations involving breaches “of the duty of loyalty [including self-dealing and conduct promoting] goals unrelated to participants’ best interests, such as the promotion of environmental, social, or governance objectives.”⁴

Continue reading “DOL Takes Aim at Proxy Advisory Services—What Plan Fiduciaries Need to Know About Technical Release 2026-01 and Their Fiduciary Duties Related to Proxy Voting”

In this Spotlight on Benefits post, we discuss the nature of equitable relief under ERISA and another federal circuit court decision rejecting surcharge as an available equitable remedy.

As background, ERISA contains an exclusive civil enforcement provision that sets forth the only claims and forms of relief available to ERISA plaintiffs. One of those claims is under ERISA § 502(a)(3), which authorizes, among other things, a claim for appropriate “equitable relief” to remedy a violation of ERISA or an ERISA plan. ERISA does not define “equitable relief,” and that phrase can have different meanings depending on the context.

Continue reading “Sixth Circuit Rejects Surcharge as a Remedy Under § 502(a)(3)”