Many employers decide not to contest a departing employee’s request for unemployment compensation (UC) or flat out ignore requests from UC agencies to provide info about a former employee’s departure. In a UC agency’s eyes, these are considered “non-responses,” and they won’t fly anymore.

Many times these non-responses lead to individuals receiving UC who shouldn’t be eligible, because the agency involved couldn’t make an accurate determination of eligibility.

These responses (or lack thereof) are usually the result of an employer separation agreement in which an employer agrees not to contest a departing employee’s request for unemployment benefits in exchange for some form of legal release.

Now, however, states that aggressively enforce a new law — the Unemployment Insurance Integrity Act — will not allow UC agencies’ requests for info to go unanswered.

The law was signed by President Obama as part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011 and is now a subsection of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. Its purpose was to strengthen the “integrity” of the unemployment compensation (UC) system by ensuring that individuals who shouldn’t qualify for UC don’t receive it simply because their former employers agreed not to contest their benefits claims.

It required states to protect UC integrity by adopting legislation that implements the provisions of the law by Oct. 21, 2013.

Non-compliance penalties

The law’s provisions require states to punish employers that show a “pattern” of not responding “adequately” or in a “timely” fashion to UC agency information requests regarding unemployment claims.

Some of the punishments states have implemented for not complying with the new notice request rules include: