Where’s the best place for the 401k plan sponsor to go for free help on their fiduciary duties and responsibilities?
Tag "fiduciary"
If the DOL requires the 401k plan fiduciary to ignore a fund’s investment performance, but the SEC still requires funds to disclose that performance, which will 401k investors choose? More importantly, who’s left holding the liability bag?
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?
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?
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.
The question now on the mind of every 401k fiduciary: Will the DOL’s new rule increase my personal fiduciary liability?
Sometimes something that appears too good to be true really is. Professionals have long known the potential pitfalls of ETFs. Only recently have these facts become more widely known. Don’t be surprised if, like a tube of toothpaste, squeezing one problem away only creates a bulge in a different problem.
