Immediately prior to joining Pierson Ferdinand, Mr. Khalil was Senior Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Investment Management Rulemaking Office, where he acted as lead counsel on regulations involving registered insurance products, private fund exemptions, and amendments to Reg S-P, and offered advice on regulatory priorities, including expanding retail access to private assets and potential amendments to the fund cross-trading rule. Mr. Khalil also served as a Litigation Counsel and Senior Trial Attorney in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Solicitor, leading high-priority ERISA litigation and advising EBSA on enforcement policy. Prior to his public service, Mr. Khalil was a member at Miller & Chevalier Chartered, where he served as Vice-Chair of the firm’s Employee Benefit practice, and an associate at Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan (n/k/a Eversheds Sutherland).

ERISA Litigation

Mr. Khalil has nearly twenty years of experience representing plan sponsors, fiduciaries, financial service providers, and insurers in a wide variety of ERISA litigation in federal trial and appellate courts. As a Litigation Counsel in the DOL’s Plan Benefits Security Division, Mr. Khalil supervised a diverse portfolio of ERISA litigation involving complex financial transactions and novel pension and health plan issues. Mr. Khalil advised EBSA regarding enforcement policy and regulatory proposals, and directed pre-litigation assistance to EBSA regional offices in connection with ongoing investigations involving potential violations of ERISA’s fiduciary, disclosure, prohibited transaction, and parity provisions. Prior to his time in public service, Mr. Khalil spent more than a decade representing clients in complex civil litigation on an array of matters arising under Titles I and IV of ERISA and the Affordable Care Act, obtaining successful results for his clients in federal trial courts and courts of appeals, frequently in cases involving novel claims. His broad expertise includes DOL investigations, MHPAEA issues, and ERISA litigation involving fiduciary breach claims, ESOPs, excessive fee claims, Title IV/PBGC matters, and health care claims.

ERISA Counseling

Mr. Khalil advises plan sponsors, investment advisers, and financial service providers on ERISA fiduciary issues and prohibited transactions, as well as matters respecting plan design, governance, administration, and investment issues including with regard to navigating novel complexities associated with investing ERISA plan assets in private markets. Mr. Khalil also has particular expertise in helping plans comply with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act incorporated into ERISA, having spearheaded parity enforcement and guidance arising from amendments to ERISA’s MHPAEA provisions, and helping launch EBSA’s Mental Health Parity Task Force. Mr. Khalil prides himself on listening to his clients and leveraging his expertise as a counselor, litigator, and regulator to provide them with value-driven, practical solutions.

Asset Management

Mr. Khalil leverages his years as a Senior Counsel at the SEC to advise sophisticated funds and investment advisors on issues arising under the Investment Company Act of 1940, including regulatory compliance matters, rulemaking, registration, exemptive relief, and assisting with examinations. While at the SEC, Mr. Khalil played a pivotal role in crafting novel regulations providing a tailored registration and disclosure framework for offerings of registered index-linked annuities. He led regulatory reform resulting in the expansion of private funds’ ability to rely on the 3(c)(1) private fund exemption for qualifying venture capital funds. Mr. Khalil was also a lead counsel driving the SEC’s 2024 amendments to Reg S-P and has worked with industry to facilitate their compliance efforts by speaking on numerous compliance outreach panels and responding to implementation questions. Additionally, Mr. Khalil advised the Division of Investment Management about a host of regulatory priorities, including expanding retail access to private assets, and potential amendments to the fund cross-trading rule and fund proxy rules. Having acted as the Division of Investment Management’s liaison to DOL on matters crossing regulatory regimes, Mr. Khalil uses his unique expertise to help firms and fund boards navigate the complexities of the 1940 Act and ERISA as they look to bring private-market products into the retirement space.