Actual enforcement of the final rule was undertaken not by DOL but, avowedly, by a state securities regulator.In 2017-2018, four separate enforcement policies were announced by DOL-one vacating a requirement of exemptive relief and three temporary policies generally limiting the conditions of compliance.
#FIDUCIARY STANDARD ACCOUNTS FULL#
It produced the April 2016 final rule, which had an applicability date of June 9, 2017, and full compliance with the conditions of all exemptions required on J(after both dates were postponed in separate proceedings subsequent to the April 2016 publication).The rulemaking process entailed thousands of pages of commentary and petitions and 3½ days of hearings.
The April 2015 reproposal – Proposal 2.0 – was announced by President Obama in a speech dedicated to that purpose.The initial October 2010 proposal – Proposal 1.0 – was offered on DOL’s own initiative without advance public groundwork, then was abandoned in September 2011 in the face of broad substantive and political opposition, after public comments and a hearing.Nearly everything about this rulemaking was unprecedented, including the following. The undertaking by the US Department of Labor (DOL) to expand the “investment advice fiduciary” definition under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), and to modify the complex of prohibited transaction exemptions for investment activities in light of that expanded definition, became the most substantial, controversial and politicized retirement rulemaking since the enactment of ERISA.