DOL resists pressure on fiduciary redraft

The Financial Services Institute and Financial Services Roundtable are pressuring the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to release a “progress report” on its redrafting of the rule that would redefine “fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), citing a list of criteria that federal legislators laid out for DOL to follow in its reproposal. (As a reminder, last October, the DOL decided to withdraw its original draft, which would have amended the rule to include business appraisers as ERISA fiduciaries.)

According to a recent report by AdvisorOne, however, the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) will not be releasing a “progress report” before it releases the fiduciary reproposal. “Our reproposal, when complete, will provide ample opportunity for public comment, both on the proposed rule itself and on our assessment of its likely effects,” a DOL spokesperson told AdvisorOne. According to the EBSA’s most recent (fall 2011) regulatory agenda, it planned to release its reproposed rule amending the definition of an ERISA fiduciary sometime this month.