IAA Statement on the Department of Labor’s Fiduciary Advice Rule
April 24, 2024
Contact: IAA VP of Communications & Marketing Janay Rickwalder.
On Tuesday, the Department released a final amendment to the definition of “fiduciary advice” under ERISA and related exemptions.
The Investment Adviser Association (IAA) strongly supports efforts to ensure that retirement advice is in the best interest of retirement investors. Investment advisers are already ERISA fiduciaries when providing investment advice to their retirement clients so the rule will have a more limited impact on them. The IAA’s recommendations called for limited clarifications and changes that we believe would better target the rule’s scope and impact. Based on our preliminary assessment of the final rule, we note that the Department made several important changes to the proposal, which are responsive to many of the IAA’s requests.
For example, the final rule confirms that investment education is not fiduciary advice, exempts advice to certain institutional investors, lightens the documentation burden for some rollover recommendations, and reduces certain recordkeeping burdens. We are also pleased that the Department recognizes that robo-advisers should be treated the same as other fiduciary investment advisers.
We are continuing to review the final rule and look forward to working with the Department as it looks to implement the rule.
