SEC Returns to the Fiduciary-Rule Arena

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On June 1, new SEC Chair Clayton returned the SEC to the arena in the policy debate surrounding the DOL’s Fiduciary Rule.  Clayton’s public statement responded to a direct invitation for SEC participation by DOL Secretary Acosta in his Wall St. Journal op-ed last week.  Acosta used the article to announce there would be no further delay in the DOL Rule, despite continuing study.

In a masterful understatement without apparent irony, the Chair noted:  “The SEC has been reviewing this area for some time, including through the RAND study of investor perspectives commissioned in 2006, the Dodd-Frank Act Section 913 staff study conducted in 2010-2011, and, most recently, a solicitation of data and other information in 2013.”

Those studies are stale, so the Commission is asking for input from the retail investing public on a number of issues, including:

  1. Retail-investor confusion among different providers of investment advice.
  2. Identifying and addressing potential conflicts of interest.
  3. Retail-investor perceptions and expectations regarding new technology, including robo-advisers and fintech.
  4. Trend toward fee-based instead of commission-based advice: Drivers, expectations, effects.
  5. Costs and benefits of multiple standards of conduct (given limited reach of DOL Rule).
  6. Different responses among market segments?
  7. Disclosure or conduct standards or both? All-at-once or gradually?
  8. International norms?

Commenters can use a Webform (here:  https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/ruling-comments ) or dedicated email address (here:  rule-comments@sec.gov ) to submit their thoughts.

The Chair’s public statement is here:  https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement-chairman-clayton-2017-05-31.

[View source.]

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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