The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulates employee pension and welfare benefit plans in the private sector of the economy. Crimes within title I of ERISA prohibit convicted persons from being employed by such plans (29 U.S.C. § 1111), punish the willful failure to comply with the reporting and disclosure requirements of the statute (29 U.S.C. § 1131(a)), punish knowing false statements in connection with the marketing or sale of multiple employer welfare arrangements (29 U.S.C. § 1131(b) and § 1149), and proscribe the use of fraud or actual or threatened violence to deprive plan participants and beneficiaries of their rights under the statute or the plan (29 U.S.C. § 1141).

[updated January 2020]