Labor: Be Careful With Fund Settlements

Federal regulators want benefit plan intermediaries and plan fiduciaries to use some commonsense when they get market-timing settlement payments from money managers.

Intermediaries and fiduciaries assume fiduciary responsibility when they get the payments, Robert Doyle, a Labor Department director, writes in Field Assistance Bulletin Number 2006-01.

Intermediaries can avoid assuming fiduciary responsibility for market-timing settlement payments if they refuse to take the payments, but they could get in trouble if they refuse to take the payments and that hurts the ability of a benefit plan to receive settlement payments, Doyle writes.