If a sponsor is found to not be in compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity provisions, they may be required to implement a compliance action plan. If they fail to implement that plan, the Registration Agency can take a number of steps. First, the Registration Agency may offer the sponsor technical assistance to promote compliance.
If the sponsor still does not come into compliance, the Registration Agency may suspend the sponsor’s right to register new apprentices. The Registration Agency can seek to do this if the sponsor fails to implement a compliance action plan within 30 business days from the date the sponsor is notified of the violation(s), or within 30 days of receiving the Registration Agency’s notice upholding its initial noncompliance findings. The regulations include a suspension provision as a way to give Registration Agencies some flexibility in working with sponsors who are not in compliance. It was not intended as a punitive option, but as an intermediate step that Registration Agencies could take rather than moving immediately into deregistration proceedings.