Employers with pension and welfare benefit plans with fewer than 100 participants must deposit participant contributions within seven days of receiving them. The U.S. Department of Labor issued the new rule in January.

President Obama used his State of the Union address in January to call on Congress to create a new kind of employer-sponsored retirement account: the “automatic workplace IRA.” By default, workers would be enrolled in a direct-deposit individual retirement account. Workers could opt out of the program, but they would proactively have to do so.

The U.S. Department of Labor has sued Mid-State Express, alleging that the trucking company collected health care premiums from its employees, but never actually used them to buy insurance. As a result, employees face more than $3 million in unpaid medical bills.

Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Michael Vick may be back in the NFL, but the litigation continues. The Employee Benefits Security Administration discovered that pension funds in one of Vick's companies were improperly diverted to Vick to pay his criminal restitution. Now Vick must pay $400,000.

Employees who manage to win both disability retirement benefits and an ADA case get the best of all possible worlds—a regular retirement check, plus a lump-sum jury award for their employer’s failure to accommodate their disability. Employees can pursue both claims if they can show that, with an accommodation, they could have performed their jobs. But if it’s very clear from their testimony in the disability retirement case that they couldn’t possibly perform their jobs under any circumstances, then their ADA cases will be dismissed.

The Eaton Neck Fire Department agreed to settle an EEOC age discrimination suit that challenged the department’s practice of not allowing the time firefighters serve after their 65th birthdays to count toward length-of-service awards. And those awards are critical to firefighters because they’re used to calculate pension benefits.

When Fort Lauderdale police officers sued the city, they claimed an early retirement offered to older workers violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The grounds: that a release the city asks the departing officers to sign illegally makes retirees relinquish all claims against the city.

Employees who decide to accept their employer’s offer for early retirement can’t also collect unemployment compensation. So said the North Carolina Supreme Court in a decision based on a simple concept: The employee would still have a job if he or she hadn’t chosen instead to take the enhanced retirement benefits offered as an incentive to leave early.

Merrill Lynch—now owned by Charlotte-based Bank of America—has reached a settlement with retired teachers in Ohio who sued when the brokerage firm allegedly misstated earnings expectations before the housing market tanked a year and a half ago. The Ohio State Teachers Retirement System’s windfall: $475 million.

Ohio Attorney General Richard Codray announced that a settlement with Merrill Lynch means the State Teachers Retirement System will be among the investors set to gain after the brokerage firm misstated earnings expectations before the housing market tanked a year and a half ago.

Employment agreements are contracts. When disputes arise, they’re typically litigated in state courts because they involve state contract laws. But under the right circumstances, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) may apply to the agreement, effectively making the contract a protected benefit plan.

A new Watson Wyatt survey says 44% of employers plan to reverse pay cuts made during the recession. That’s up from 30% in June. Also, about one-third of employers plan to unfreeze salaries, up from 17%.

On top of the declining value of their investments, many employees also saw their employers’ 401(k) matching contributions disappear during the recession. A Grant Thornton survey found that 29% of companies reduced or intend to modify their contributions to employees’ 401(k) accounts.

The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a $50 million judgment against Chicago investment advisor John Orecchio for using money from six union pensions for his own private business interests. According to the SEC, Orecchio used pension assets to pay for private jet travel, Super Bowl tickets, construction at his Michigan horse farm and renovations to a Detroit strip club he owns.

Insurance giant AIG has settled a dispute with three Ohio public employee pensions for $115 million. All of  them claimed AIG, its top executives and related firms used anti-competitive practices and fraudulent accounting that led to massive losses for the pensions.