The Daily Brief for Benefits Professionals
BenefitsWire
Retirement Plans
September 10, 2026
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5 items · ~2 min read
Top of the Brief
2026: A Defining Year for Employee Benefits – The Conversations In‑House Counsel Should be Having Now“1:15 PM ET The Hamilton 820 Hamilton St.Charlotte, NC 28206 Heather Heath Ryan Brianna Hourihan 2026 is a pivotal year for employee benefits, with new legislation and disclosure obligations, continued regulatory initiatives, and novel and evolving benefits-related claims already taking shape.”
In this issue
Retirement Plans (1) · Litigation (1) · General Benefits (3)
Retirement Plans
1 item“Are asset managers offering private markets in their own employees' retirement plans? Wilshire CRO Todd Cassler unpacks the liquidity, valuation, and recordkeeping hurdles advisors must navigate before presenting alternative assets to plan committees.” MORE >>
Source: 401(k) Specialist
Litigation
1 item“In Anderson v. Intel, a clear ruling by the Supreme Court on meaningful benchmarks is needed. The ruling should: In early October 2026, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee. The case originated in October 2015 when a group of plaintiffs sued Intel, alleging imprudent decisions were made regarding the investment menu in Intel’s defined contribution plan.1 Following the 2008 financial crisis, Intel’s investment committee intentionally altered the allocation of its proprietary, customized suite of target date funds and global diversified fund to incorporate alternative assets as a deliberate risk-mitigation strategy. When those ” MORE >>
Source: Encore Fiduciary
General Benefits
3 items“1:15 PM ET The Hamilton 820 Hamilton St.Charlotte, NC 28206 Heather Heath Ryan Brianna Hourihan 2026 is a pivotal year for employee benefits, with new legislation and disclosure obligations, continued regulatory initiatives, and novel and evolving benefits-related claims already taking shape.” MORE >>
Source: Troutman Pepper Locke
“Large pension systems should move beyond evaluating private markets solely against public market benchmarks and incorporate peer-based and PME benchmarking to better assess manager skill, portfolio construction and governance effectiveness. A multi-benchmark approach can strengthen oversight, accountability, and stakeholder reporting while also enabling greater accuracy in fiduciary analysis. For large pension systems, private markets are no longer a tactical sleeve; they are a structural source of return, diversification, and long-term funding support. Yet many plans still evaluate private equity, private credit, and other illiquid assets primarily against a public market index plus a sprea” MORE >>
Source: NCPERS
“Since ERISA plan fiduciaries will be responsible for AI’s mistakes, they need to have a clear understanding of the limits ERISA imposes on their ability to outsource to AI and their own responsibilities to review AI-created work product. Even if the fiduciaries are not using AI internally for administration they should not assume they are unaffected by these changes, since their recordkeeper and other third party providers are very probably doing so.” MORE >>
Source: Cohen & Buckmann, P.C.