The Broker-Dealer Regulation & Litigation Digest is a periodic compilation of the most read blog posts published on the Broker-Dealer Law Blog during the last few months. Here you can catch up on what you missed or re-read these popular post.
Continue reading “Broker-Dealer Regulation & Litigation Digest – Spring 2021”
The Department of Labor (DOL) confirmed on February 12 that the Trump-era Prohibited Transaction Exemption 2020-02 (PTE) would go into effect as scheduled on February 16, 2021. The PTE will likely affect the business of broker-dealers that regularly make investment recommendations to IRA owners, as well as retirement plans and their participants (including rollover recommendations). This is due in part to the requirements of the PTE itself, but also because the rulemaking includes new interpretations that will expand the circumstances under which broker-dealers and their associated persons will be deemed to be advice fiduciaries. (The exemption refers to broker-dealers as “financial institutions” and their associated persons as “investment professionals” and this article uses those terms.)
As a result of these changes, broker-dealers need to re-evaluate whether and when they (and their investment professionals) may be fiduciaries, and where they are fiduciaries, they need to develop compliant practices, policies and procedures.
Welcome to the Broker-Dealer Regulation & Litigation Digest – a periodic compilation of the most popular blog posts from the Broker-Dealer Law Blog during the last few months. If you don’t already receive our posts, you can subscribe to the blog.
Continue reading “Broker-Dealer Regulation & Litigation Digest – Fall 2020”
Arizona has become the second state after Iowa to enact a best interest standard for the sale of annuities. Like the Iowa law, both of which become effective January 1, 2021, Arizona’s law is modeled after the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) model regulation. The new law requires insurance producers to “act in the best interest of the consumer under the circumstances known at the time the recommendation is made, without placing the producer’s or the insurer’s financial interest ahead of the consumer’s interest.”
Continue reading “Recent State Fiduciary Duty Developments: Arizona Enacts Best Interest Standard”
The Iowa Insurance Division has adopted the insurance producer portion of the rule for its proposed best interest standard for annuity sales, effective January 1, 2020. In response to comments, the Division elected to postpone the rule’s application to securities professionals, indicating that it intends to publish new rulemaking for the securities industry later this summer.
See the updated state chart.
The Massachusetts Securities Division has issued an amended version of its proposed fiduciary standard for financial advisors. The original proposal was released in mid-June.
The amendment adds definition to the standard by including a detailed list of requirements as described in Faegre Drinker’s updated state law chart. The absence of this type of description has been a major criticism of other attempts at adopting a fiduciary standard for financial advisors.
Nevada has released a proposed regulation to regulate broker-dealers and their advisors as fiduciaries. In 2017, the state amended its securities law to provide that broker-dealers and investment advisers owe a fiduciary duty to their customers, but the change didn’t provide details on what that meant. Instead, the legislation required that a regulation be issued to explain and implement the change. Nearly a year and a half later, a proposed regulation has been released.
Last month the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) issued its “2019 Examination Priorities.” The release of OCIE’s 2019 Priorities this year was earlier than in years past. In retrospect, the date of issuance being the last day before the vast majority of the SEC staff was furloughed may just be coincidental, but the federal government shutdown allowed the industry more time to study OCIE’s 2019 Priorities for compliance planning for the upcoming year. Another impact of the shutdown and furloughs in an area directly related to OCIE’s first priority is that the SEC’s efforts and the timing of the finalization of the Reg BI proposals have very likely been slowed as well. The recent ending of the SEC furloughs and OCIE’s continuing prioritization of retail and retirement regulatory issues presents us with an opportune time to re-visit these important topics.
Continue reading “The Continuing Convergence of Retail and Retirement Regulatory Oversight”
If you thought that avoiding fiduciary status would be a slam-dunk after the “new” DOL fiduciary advice rule was vacated, think again. The DOL’s old fiduciary regulation is back and it casts an unexpectedly wide net.
Let’s start with the background. The reinstated fiduciary definition says that a broker-dealer and its advisor (a “broker”) are fiduciaries to a plan if a functional five-part test is satisfied: (1) the broker provides advice about investments for a fee or other compensation, (2) on a regular basis, (3) under a mutual understanding, (4) that the advice will form a primary basis for the plan’s decisions, and (5) that the advice is individualized based upon the plan’s particular needs. For this purpose, a “plan” includes not only an ERISA plan, but also an IRA. (In the context of IRAs, being a fiduciary under the five-part test does not itself implicate a standard of care, but does apply to the applicability of certain prohibited transactions.)
As discussed regularly on this blog, the financial industry has seen a stream of rules and regulations in recent years that relate to the standard of care and management of conflicts for broker-dealers, investment advisers, insurance agents and companies.
The need for experienced counsel to help navigate the evolving and overlapping federal and state “best interest” obligations has increased. It’s the reason we’re excited to announce the launch of our Best Interest Compliance Team.
This interdisciplinary group of more than 20 lawyers consists of attorneys with experience across Investment Management, ERISA, SEC & Regulatory Enforcement Defense, Litigation/FINRA Arbitration, and Insurance Regulatory and Transactional practice areas.
The Best Interest Compliance Team will help clients make decisions about questions such as:
To learn more about the new Best Interest Compliance Team, read our press release or visit our team page on the Drinker Biddle website.
