Deals and People January 21, 2025

Trump Appoints Acting Secretary for Department of Labor

The acting secretary will run the DOL while Trump’s nominee for secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, awaits confirmation.

Reported by

Vince Micone

President Donald Trump on Tuesday named Vince Micone acting secretary of labor, while his nominee for the position, former Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, awaits Senate confirmation.

Micone will run the DOL while Chavez-DeRemer goes through the Senate confirmation process. Micone assumes the role from his previous position as deputy assistant secretary for operations in the Department of Labor’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management.

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Trump last week also nominated former Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner Keith Sonderling to serve as deputy labor secretary. Sonderling also awaits a confirmation hearing.

In his deputy assistant role role at DOL, Micone provided day-to-day management to more than 770 employees in the national office and six regional offices. He also had overall leadership responsibility for policy and operations encompassing business operations, procurement, human resource management, civil rights, emergency management, security, administrative services and employee safety and health at the department, according to his DOL biography.

Prior to joining OASAM, Micone was the executive director for enterprise services with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Micone also previously served on Trump’s 2016 presidential transition team, as well as in administrative roles at several other federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury and Department of Homeland Security.

In addition, Miccone serves as co-chair of the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area, the federal government’s workplace charitable giving campaign. Under his leadership, the campaign has raised more than $770 million in charitable contributions for tens of thousands of nonprofit organizations, according to the DOL.

The previous acting secretary, Julie Su, was nominated twice by former President Joe Biden but was never confirmed by the full Senate. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions last advanced her nomination to the full Senate in February 2024. She served as acting secretary from March 2023 until Biden’s term ended on Monday.

Compliance January 21, 2025

Oregon-Based Employer to Restore $20.6M in Pension Assets, Unwind Illegal Real Estate Purchases

R.B. Pamplin Corp. used pension fund assets to acquire the company’s own real estate, exceeding limits under ERISA, the DOL found.

Reported by

Oregon-based The R.B. Pamplin Corp. and its chairman, president and CEO, Robert Pamplin, must restore more $20.6 million to the company’s pension plan after Pamplin used pension assets to make real estate acquisitions that violated ERISA, according to a December 2024 consent judgment filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon that was announced by the Department of Labor last week.

Properties invested in by the pension fund included rangeland, a vineyard, an island, an office building and irrigated cropland, according to a September 2024 filing by the DOL against Pamplin and his company.

Pamplin admitted to using money from the company’s pension fund to acquire interests in more than 27 company-owned properties since 2019. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, employer-owned real estate cannot exceed more than 10% of the fair market value of the assets of the plan. The company, based in Portland, Oregon, is an industrial services company that manufactures, distributes and operates wine, agriculture, concrete, textiles, news, entertainment and retail businesses.

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Pamplin will have to unwind $15.4 million worth of real estate investments from the plan and will have to reimburse to the pension fund any lost earnings that could have accrued if the plan had been “invested properly.” Pamplin will also be banned from serving as a fiduciary to an ERISA-covered employee benefit plan. 

“The evidence proves that Dr. Pamplin violated ERISA by failing in his duty to protect and secure his employees’ promised pension benefits. The department will closely monitor compliance with this judgment to ensure he and his company meet their legal obligations,” said the DOL’s San Francisco-based regional solicitor, Marc Pilotin, in a statement. “We remain committed to holding plan fiduciaries accountable when they break the law and fail to keep their promises.”

Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors LLC will serve as the pension fund’s independent fiduciary and investment manager responsible for bringing the plan into compliance with ERISA, including selling all imprudent real estate holdings.

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