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Maybe someone with more expertise in this particular area will chime in, but I have a hard time imagining the DOL getting involved in a situation like this. The DOL exists to protect the rights of employees, and a service provider is not an employee. This sounds like a contract dispute between two businesses.

So you have two separate issues - plan compliance and DBPW compliance. If the Plan excluded HCEs from participation, w/o specific exception for those subject to prevailing wage, then they should not be in the plan and those contributions should be forfeited. That takes care of plan compliance. I expect the Plan has provisions for inclusion of ineligible employees by mistake. Now you have a DBPW compliance issue, which you need to satisfy by paying these employees cash compensation or some other permissible DBPW benefit. If the HCEs legitimately remain in the Plan and get these contributions, then you need to look at all the available avenues for passing 401(a)(4). You don't say how you are testing and failing, or by how much, so it's difficult to suggest a course of action - cross-testing, restructuring, 11(g), and whether you also have coverage issues, can satisfy gateway, etc. but you can and should look at all if necessary.

Not Labor department agency action, but there is litigation in Federal courts. For example: Davidowitz v. Delta Dental Plan of Cal., Inc., 946 F.2d 1476, 1481 (9th Cir. 1991) (plan’s anti-assignment provision precludes a participant from assigning her rights). Quaresma v. BC Life & Health Ins. Co., 623 F. Supp. 2d 1110, 1128-29 (E.D. Cal. 2007) (following the plan’s anti-assignment provision, the purported assignee lacked standing). Ward v. The Retirement Board of Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan, 643 F.3d 1331 (11th Cir. 2011) (A plan’s provision that any “benefit under the plan” will not be assigned or reached by creditors through legal process is valid and enforceable. The court gave no effect to a State court’s order that a benefit be paid to a participant’s lawyer’s client trust account.) Neurological Surgery Associates, P.A. v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., No. 2:12-cv-05600-SRC-CLW, 59 Empl. Benefits Cas. (BL) 1075, 2014 BL 154982, 2014 U.S. Dist. Lexis 75906, 2014 WL 2510555 (D.N.J. June 4, 2014) (health plan’s anti-assignment provision enforceable). Aviation West Charters, LLC v. UnitedHealthcare Ins. Co., No. 2:16-cv-00436-WBS-AC (E.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2017) (plan’s provision precluded assignment; plan not bound by its administrator’s nonobjection to an attempted assignment). Am. Orthopedic & Sports Med. v. Independence Blue Cross, 890 F.3d 445, 2018 Empl. Benefits Cas. (BL) 173478, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 12637 (3d Cir. May 16, 2018) (health plan’s anti-assignment provision enforceable; yet participant might grant a power of attorney). Med. Soc’y of N.Y. v. UnitedHealth Grp. Inc., No. 15-cv-5265, 2019 WL 1409806 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 28, 2019) (That a plan provided discretion to pay a healthcare provider does not negate the plan’s anti-assignment provision. And a payer’s practices were within the discretion and not a waiver.) University Spine Center v. Aetna, Inc., No. 18-2842 (3d Cir. May 16, 2019) (declining a proposed interpretation that an anti-assignment provision must limit not only one’s right to assign but also one’s power to assign). With little success in overcoming a health plan’s anti-assignment provisions, some healthcare providers ask a patient to appoint the provider as the claimant’s representative for the health plan’s claims procedure. Next, we’ll see health plans’ defenses against that practice.

Usually you can't actually defer 100% of pay, since medicare and social security tax have to be withheld. Medicare is 1.45% and social security is 6.2% so the max she could actually defer would be about 92%. That should leave plenty of room for a 4% safe harbor match. That said, the plan document should specify how 415 violations are corrected.

Sorry, no expert. You might consider looking for a domestic relations attorney in a city near the border, such as Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit, Windsor, etc. Attorney website might have information related to your specific need.

If it is a SH match and they are eligible, it is required. I'm not sure how your firm operates but we tell people what they have to or may contribute, and if they are getting K-1s then they would have little to no idea what the actual required contributions are until we do the calcs.