Nonprofit Basics: Conflict of Interest Policies and Best Practices for Approving Insider Compensation
Nonprofit Basics: Insider Transactions and Nonprofits – What’s the Big Deal?
Conflicts of Interest in Healthcare and Elsewhere
Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and Gamification: Your Questions Answered
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 124: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 282: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
What to Do When Your University, FBI, or DOJ Knocks on Your Door: Responding to University, Criminal, and Civil Investigations
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – The ADV season
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – DOL: What’s ahead
Podcast: Credit Funds: Compliance Considerations for Valuation
CONVERGE18-Preview Podcasts-David Bunker on COIs in the Gig Economy
Podcast - Credit Funds: A Framework for Addressing and Mitigating Conflicts of Interest
Day 7 of One Month to Better Investigations and Report-How Investigations Inform Remediation
Day 15 of One Month to Better Compliance Through HR-Employment Separation Issues
Bill Beutler on Editing Wikipedia
Rules for rewarding 'super' condo board members
Bill on Bankruptcy: US Airways Need a Merger More than AMR
It’s amazing sometimes how people are blind to conflicts of interest that are as clear as day. In my local hamlet, the Library Board hired a School District board member as their attorney even though there is a financial...more
Ten years ago, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a final regulation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) that required retirement plan service providers to disclose information about...more
On October 25, 2021, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) released Field Assistance Bulletin 2021-02 (FAB 2021-02), which extends its non-enforcement policies regarding certain rules applicable to fiduciaries who provide...more
Overview: In general, the prohibited transaction rules (in ERISA and the Tax Code) (1) prohibit fiduciaries that provide investment advice to plans subject to Title I of ERISA (including 401(k) plans, pension plans and...more
Overview The U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) on December 15, 2020 issued a release (the “Release”) finalizing Prohibited Transaction Class Exemption (“PTCE”) 2020-2 (the “Final Exemption”) for retirement accounts...more
On December 18, 2020, the US Department of Labor (DOL or Department) adopted with limited changes its Proposal 3.0 regarding ERISA fiduciary investment advice, focused on the fiduciary status of rollover advice and a “best...more
Just as broker-dealers and investment advisers finalized their initial implementation plans for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Form CRS and Regulation Best Interest (Reg. BI), the US Department of Labor (DOL)...more
On June 29, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (the Department) formally reinstated its “five-part test” for determining what constitutes “investment advice” under ERISA and Section 4975 of the Internal Revenue Code (the...more
Over the next year, the Department of Labor (DOL) will likely be issuing guidance in a number of areas that could impact asset managers and financial services companies. In this Bottom Line videocast, Carol McClarnon and...more
On June 5, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) voted to adopt “Regulation Best Interest,” which is intended to increase the duties a broker-dealer owes to its clients. While SEC-registered investment advisors...more
On June 5, 2019, the SEC adopted a package of rules and interpretations (the Adopted Rules) to clarify and further articulate the relationship between retail investors and their broker-dealers or investment advisers....more
On October 22 and 23, the NAIC Annuity Suitability (A) Working Group (Suitability WG) held an interim meeting to review comments received on the Suitability in Annuity Transactions Model Regulation (Model 275) (Suitability...more
In June, we circulated our fifth article on the continuing saga regarding the standard of conduct for sales of securities and annuities — and the efforts of federal and state regulators to impose new conditions on the...more
For several years now we’ve been keeping you updated on the long and winding road of the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) Fiduciary Rule....more
On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its order, or mandate, putting into effect its earlier decision to vacate the Department of Labor’s (DOL) conflict of interest regulation (the fiduciary...more
The Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) conflict of interest rule, informally coined the “fiduciary rule,” sparked much debate when the regulations were proposed in 2015, and finalized in 2016, to expand the definition of fiduciary...more
The issue over the Fiduciary Rule, and whether it will be implemented, revised, vacated, forgotten, etc. has been ongoing. In March 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of several business groups who...more
On May 7, 2018, the Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued a temporary non-enforcement policy regarding its investment advice fiduciary regulation (the “Fiduciary Rule”) in Field Assistance Bulletin 2018-02. This guidance was...more
On March 15, the Fifth Circuit, in Chamber of Commerce, et. al. v. United States Department of Labor, a 46-page opinion, reversed the district court’s ruling upholding the Department of Labor (DOL) fiduciary rule and vacated...more
On May 22, 2017, Department of Labor (“DOL”) Secretary Alexander Acosta announced in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the DOL would not issue another delay of the “fiduciary rule,” and that it was set to generally...more
Due to the increased litigation of air ambulance claims, employers may want to review their plan language to see whether their group health plan covers air ambulance services, and if so, to better understand the terms of the...more
On March 15, 2018, in a 2–1 decision, the Fifth Circuit vacated all parts of the Department of Labor's so-called "Fiduciary Rule" in Chamber of Commerce, et. al. v. Acosta, No. 17-10238 (5th Cir. March 15, 2018). The Labor...more
On March 15, 2018, in Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A., et al. v. U.S. Department of Labor, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidated the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) new investment advice fiduciary regulation...more
On March 15, in Chamber of Commerce v. U.S. Department of Labor, No. 17-10238 (5th Cir. March 15, 2018), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) fiduciary rule in a 2-1 decision. ...more
It was the Ides of March for the Obama Administration’s “fiduciary duty rule” that sought to remake much of nation’s financial markets by back-door regulation of anyone dealing with IRA investors. The US Fifth Circuit...more