Will Congress, the SEC and the DOL upgrade the current fiduciary standard to the trust model used by bank trust departments so successfully for more than a century?
Has index investing become the soma of savers? Does it place employees – and the markets – in harm’s way? By extension, has the 401k fiduciary now assumed a greater liability?
Should indirect fees matter? Academics may argue, but regulators will have the final say. Unfortunately, different definitions of fees only confound the ERISA fiduciary.
Too many accept the definition of “fees” without deliberation. Yet, even by looking solely at the fees associated with investment choice, the fiduciary can land in a state of confusion. This only increases liability. How can we fix this?
Under the DOL’s proposed Investment Advice Rule, if a plan enters into a prohibited relationship with a vendor – or if an existing relationship now becomes prohibited – fiduciary liability rises. Can the 401k fiduciary afford to ignore these critical issues?
Are you breathing a sigh of relief? Commentators seem to have coalesced around several key benefits of this proposed Rule. Can you see these helping your plan’s participants?
Most interesting, though, may loom the warning of Justice Alito: When is comes to fiduciary duty, disclosure isn’t enough. One wonders if the DOL is listening.
At one point within two days of a total meltdown, our financial markets appear to have recovered. Can we now say with certainty what went wrong? Will misguided “solutions” only place our markets are risk once more?
As usual, be careful about elixirs marketed as cure-alls. Personally involved in creating CITs in the early 1990s specifically to market to 401k plans, I’ll share my experiences with you here.
$16.5 million is a large price to pay for disclosure and due diligence a plan fiduciary can simply and consistently address. This may be the easiest action a 401k plan fiduciary to take to prevent the camel from sticking his nose under the tent.
