District Court Stays Mental Health Parity Regulatory Challenge Pending Trump Administration’s Reconsideration of 2024 Rulemaking and Parity Enforcement Practices

On May 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the U.S. Department of Justice’s motion to stay the ERISA Industry Committee’s challenge to the Departments of Labor’s, Health and Human Services’, and Treasury’s (“Tri-Agencies”) 2024 final regulation implementing additional health plan compliance requirements under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (“MHPAEA”). The Justice Department’s motion stated that the Tri-Agencies “do not intend to enforce parts of the [2024] [R]ule” and will “issue a non-enforcement policy in the near future covering the portions of the 2024 Rule that are applicable for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2025 and January 1, 2026.” The Justice Department further indicated that the Tri-Agencies intended to reexamine the 2024 Rule, as well as their “current MHPAEA enforcement program more generally.”