A former ERISA compliance and record-keeping firm owner with in-house financial services industry experience and over 30 years of legal experience, Art serves as the firm's Employee Benefits Practice Area chair. He primarily concentrates on helping plan sponsors and fiduciaries identify, prioritize, and minimize the litigation and liability risks associated with the management and administration of employee benefit programs through plan drafting, employee-communications strategies, plan-governance ideas, and “best practice” policies and procedures.
Art has extensive experience drafting employee benefit plan documents and summary plan descriptions, assisting senior executives and board members in understanding their fiduciary responsibilities and counseling on steps to minimize those responsibilities and the attendant litigation and liability risks.
He regularly advises plan sponsors, insurers, and health-plan service providers on issues relating to ERISA, COBRA, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and HIPAA privacy and security. He routinely negotiates administrative-service agreements, business-associate agreements, and nondisclosure and data-transmission agreements related to the operation and administration of self-funded medical plans. Art also advises health insurance companies and brokers on designing, documenting, and administering insurance products and services in a manner that comports with applicable law, most notably the ACA.
In ERISA claims and dispute resolution, Art helps claims administrators and administrative committees maintain compliant-claims procedures, communicate the procedures to participants, and adhere to the timeline, notice, and substantive requirements of the procedure and federal law to help preserve administrative discretion. When litigation is unavoidable, Art aggressively represents plan sponsors, service providers, employee benefit plans, and plan fiduciaries in the defense of ERISA benefits and fiduciary-breach claims. He has argued ERISA cases in federal courts across New York State, including the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and also represents plan sponsors and fiduciaries in connection with US Department of Labor investigations and enforcement matters.