DOL Defends Its Secret Data-Sharing Pacts With Plaintiffs’ Firms

The Biden Labor Department is standing by its use of secret information-sharing agreements with plaintiffs’ law firms following criticism from Capitol Hill and the ongoing threat of an internal investigation.

DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration “seldom enters into” common interest agreements, and only identified nine since 2022, despite more than 1,600 currently open civil investigations, a department spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg Law.

Although rare, the spokesperson said the department has legal precedent for the pacts, noting a 2015 case in which a federal judge upheld an agreement the DOL used to acquire documents from a union worker ...