Photo of Monique Warren

Monique Warren is a Principal in the White Plains, New York office of Jackson Lewis P.C. Ms. Warren is a member of the Employee Benefits Counseling, Executive Compensation, Benefits Litigation and Workplace Privacy Practice Group.

Ms. Warren counsels employers on employee benefits compliance and administrative matters, drafts plan documents and employee communication materials, and represents employers to government agencies and in employee benefit litigation. Her expertise includes health and welfare plans as well as retirement plans.

Ms. Warren has spoken at numerous client and professional association events including SHRM and WEB meetings. She also has presented numerous seminars on employee benefits compliance topics including benefits basics for human resource professionals, HIPAA privacy and security, 409A requirements, and annual legal updates.

Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Ms. Warren was a member of the employee benefits group of a large Chicago law firm and later maintained her own practice in Illinois, representing employers in employee benefits, employment and employment-related immigration matters. While attending law school, she was an intern in the tax clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and was a judicial extern for the Honorable Blanche Manning, Federal District Court, Northern District of Illinois. As a law student, she received academic honors and was a member of the moot court employment law team.

During the ten years prior to attending law school, Ms. Warren directed human resource functions in manufacturing and research enterprises. She was certified as a Senior Human Resource Professional by SHRM in 1996.

As explained in an earlier post, the 2010 health care reform law requires health plans to provide women’s preventive care and services without cost sharing. Regulations issued August 1, 2011 included all FDA-approved contraception for women in the definition of women’s preventive care and services. That includes abortion and abortifacient drugs (like the so-called

As expected, the government issued guidance (in the form of frequently asked questions posted on the Department of Labor’s website) postponing the due date for employers to issue notices regarding the availability of health coverage under state exchanges.

Under the 2010 health care reform law, a provision added to the Fair Labor Standards Act requires

The IRS released proposed regulations last week that amplify and modify earlier guidance issued on the 2010 health care reform law’s employer penalty provision. 

Highlights of the proposed regulations include:

  • For purposes of determining whether an employer has the threshold 50 full-time employees, an employer can use any consecutive 6-month period in 2013, instead of

The Internal Revenue Service issued updated correction procedures for employer-sponsored retirement plans on New Years’ Eve. Revenue Procedure 2013-12 updates the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System (“EPCRS”) previously set forth in Revenue Procedure 2008-50.  Now, nonprofit employers sponsoring 403(b) plans can correct document failures with the IRS’s blessing.

A 403(b) plan document failure can be corrected

Employers wrestling with how to budget for the additional costs associated with the 2010 health care reform law have one more cost to consider: the “transitional reinsurance program” fee. Barely discussed in the public forum up to now (probably because the amount per plan was not determinable), the government has clarified how this fee could impact

Many employers put off making plans to deal with the employer shared responsibility penalty provision of the 2010 health care reform law until after the November elections.  With President Obama’s re-election and no real possibility of legislative repeal, procrastinating further would be ill-advised.  Employers need to understand now the way the penalty can be triggered

The IRS has extended the deadline for amending many defined benefits pension plans under Internal Revenue Code Section 436. Section 436 was added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (“PPA”) and provides a series of limitations on the accrual and payment of benefits under an underfunded plan. (For more information, see Your Defined Benefit

Under Internal Revenue Code Section 436, which was added by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (“PPA”), calendar year defined benefit pension plans must be amended by December 31, 2012. Section 436 provides a series of limitations on the accrual and payment of benefits under an underfunded plan.

The provisions of Section 436 apply only

On July 30, 2012, the Department of Labor issued FAB 2012-02R as a revised version of FAB 2012-02 (issued May 7, 2012), which supplements the participant-level fee disclosure regulation and how it may be implemented. (See our prior post regarding FAB 2012-02.)

Q&A 30 of FAB 2012-02 generated significant controversy as it appeared to introduce

Now that the July 1, 2012 deadline has passed for ERISA “covered service providers” to inform “responsible plan fiduciaries” about the services performed for their retirement plans and the investment management, recordkeeping, and other fees charged to those plans, it is time for employers and other plan fiduciaries to take action.

First, plan fiduciaries must