New York Hotel Trades Council & Hotel Association of New York City, Inc. Health Benefits Fund — abbreviated "NYHTC HBF" in court filings and commonly referred to as the Employee Benefit Funds (hotelfunds.org) — is a jointly trusteed Taft-Hartley employee benefit fund headquartered at 305 West 44th Street, New York, NY. Its medical program dates to 1949, when New York State legislation signed by Gov. Thomas Dewey created the Health Center; the Health Benefits Fund as currently structured was formed in 1999 by consolidating the Union Family Medical, Insurance and Dental Funds. It is a 501(c)(9) voluntary employees' beneficiary association, not a public company or subsidiary, and is a separate legal entity from the union, governed by a board with equal union- and employer-designated trustees.
Its operations are a self-insured, largely self-administered multi-employer health plan for New York City hotel-industry workers, covering roughly 85,000–90,000 members, dependents and retirees. Benefits include medical and hospitalization coverage, prescription drugs, dental, vision, life insurance, AD&D, short-term disability and mental-health/substance-abuse services, funded almost entirely by employer contributions under the collective bargaining agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City. The Fund owns and operates Health and Dental Centers in Midtown Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens plus an Industry Training Center in Queens, with about 1,000 employed or contracted physicians, nurses, pharmacists, counselors and administrative staff (per its own "About the Funds" page). Form 990 data summarized by compensation990 lists roughly $562 million in revenue and $613 million in expenses for FY2024.
Litigation posture: The Fund is an operating benefit plan, not an NPE, and functions as a payer-side antitrust plaintiff. The case data shows one tracked matter, as plaintiff and none as defendant.
Notable case: New York Hotel Trades Council & Hotel Association of New York City, Inc., Health Center Inc. v. Celgene Corp., No. 1:24-cv-02230-ER (S.D.N.Y.), filed March 25, 2024 and associated with lead case Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Co. v. Celgene Corp., No. 1:23-cv-07871-ER. The Fund alleges Celgene/Bristol Myers Squibb used fraudulently obtained Pomalyst patents, sham litigation and reverse-payment settlements to delay generic pomalidomide, seeking overcharge damages. The court dismissed the complaint in March 2025 for lack of standing and failure to plead fraud; after amendment, judgment was entered for defendants in April 2026. Sources do not identify the Fund among the parties appealing.