The Department of Labor (DOL) on Tuesday, April 23, released final regulations that will subject the financial services industry to new requirements designed to protect retirement investors from receiving bad or self-interested investment advice.
The new regulations, known as the "retirement security rule," will go into effect Sept. 23, but the DOL anticipates court challenges. In 2016, when DOL finalized a somewhat similar fiduciary rule, the Fifth Circuit struck it down.
The DOL's new rule widens the situations in which a financial services provider qualifies as an "investment advice fiduciary" for purposes of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and thus owes duties of prudence and loyalty to retirement investors.
The AICPA had recommended in a letter that the DOL's new rules protecting retirement investors follow the AICPA Statement on Standards in Personal Financial Planning Services, but the department did not adopt that approach. Learn more.