On April 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released a field assistance bulletin laying out principles for its enforcement priorities.

As the entity charged with ensuring the security of retirement plan benefits of American workers and their beneficiaries, EBSA enforcement priorities are closely watched by the regulated community. This release may be particularly instructive to illustrate this administration’s EBSA’s approach to its regulatory oversight of retirement plans. It identifies four principles, detailed further below.

1. Focusing enforcement on the most egregious conduct and significant harm

As its highest priority, EBSA will focus on cases involving criminal misconduct and breach of the fiduciary duty of loyalty. EBSA will target individuals and entities who, acting in bad faith, improperly administer plan benefits or misappropriate assets for their own benefit or for other purposes unrelated to maximizing risk adjusted financial returns for American workers and their beneficiaries.

2. Promoting fairness, prior notice, and clarity to the regulated community

The release states EBSA’s goal to provide clear and advance notice to the regulated public about its interpretation of ERISA and fiduciary responsibilities. It seeks to avoid regulating through enforcement activities or using enforcement to drive policy.

3. Requiring review by senior agency officials of all critical enforcement initiatives

The release requires EBSA leadership to be notified when possible, two weeks before any deadline or proposed action involving significant enforcement activity. This notice requirement is intended to help EBSA leadership ensure EBSA is meeting its enforcement priorities and guidelines, and to ensure consistency of enforcement across all regions.

4. Committing to timely and responsive enforcement

The release states EBSA’s commitment to addressing concerns that some past investigations were “open-ended.”  EBSA announced in its bulletin that it would endeavor to close routine investigations within 18 months and complex investigations within 30 months.

Takeaways for Advisors, Plan Sponsors, and Other Employer Plan Fiduciaries

The release evidences EBSA’s intent to spend enforcement resources going after bad actors but not imposing undue burdens on retirement plans that seek to comply with ERISA.

While welcome news for the regulated community, it may have little practical impact on well-run retirement plans. EBSA enforcement priorities change from one administration to the next, but core legal and fiduciary obligations for overseeing retirement plans are constant. The best way for investment fiduciaries to address their legal and regulatory risks in any regulatory environment is to ensure that obligations to select investments for the sole purpose of maximizing risk adjusted financial returns and other fiduciary obligations are scrupulously met.