Photo of Benjamin Flaxenburg

Benjamin O. Flaxenburg is an associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Group.

Prior to joining Proskauer, Ben served as an extern for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana and as a judicial extern to the Honorable Nannette Jolivette Brown at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Ben was also a managing editor of the Tulane Maritime Law Journal, a member of the Tulane’s Moot Court Board and a member of Tulane’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Moot Court Team.

Since the beginning of 2016, the ERISA plaintiffs’ bar has filed nearly two dozen complaints targeting university-sponsored 403(b) plans.  The majority of these lawsuits assert that plan fiduciaries breached their duties and engaged in prohibited transactions by (1) “packing” a plan with too many investment options that underperformed and were more expensive relative to other

Beginning January 1, 2020, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) will: (i) reduce filing fees charged to parties initiating arbitrations of withdrawal liability disputes; (ii) change how costs of arbitrations are allocated among the parties to the disputes; and (iii) amend the process for resolving arbitrator selection disputes.

The new filing fees are modest in comparison

A federal district court in Texas referred to arbitration a 401(k) plan participant’s ERISA breach of fiduciary duty action based on allegations that certain plan investment options charged excessive fees.  In a two-page order, the court instructed the arbitrator to determine whether the arbitrator or a court should determine whether the class action waiver provision

The Ninth Circuit recently held that ERISA does not preempt a Nevada state law that curtailed the ability of multiemployer plans to recover unpaid employer contributions.  Under Nevada law SB 223, general contractors can be held vicariously liable for the labor debts of their subcontractors, including contributions owed by subcontractors pursuant to a collective bargaining

A recent ERISA opinion gives us occasion to point out the important distinction under ERISA concerning fiduciary duties as they pertain to existing benefits and possible benefits.  In this case, the plaintiff alleged that defendants misrepresented to her that her retirement benefit plan would not change or would only change to her advantage after the

The Seventh Circuit rejected a disability plan participant’s argument that an untimely decision denying his claim for long-term disability benefits warranted changing the standard of review from arbitrary and capricious to de novo.  In so ruling, the Court explained that had plaintiff filed suit once the time for a timely decision had passed (because his

In an opinion released yesterday, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) must be interpreted according to “ordinary principles of contract law.” CNH Industrial N.V. v. Reese, No. 17-515, 2018 WL 942419 (U.S. Feb. 20, 2018).  In so ruling, the Court again rejected the Sixth Circuit’s inference from silence that CBAs vested