DOL Fiduciary Redraft Likely Out by May

The Department of Labor’s redraft of its fiduciary rule was said to be on Labor Secretary Thomas Perez’s desk in mid-November, so it’s likely the redraft could be at the Office of Management and Budget by year-end, with a proposed regulation out by April or May, said Brian Graff, executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA) and the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA).

As Phyllis Borzi, assistant secretary of labor for DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, said Oct. 29 at ASPPA’s annual conference, EBSA is coming “very close” to finishing its work on the reproposed rule.

In his comments at the Schwab IMPACT conference in Washington, Graff noted the problems he sees with the DOL’s fiduciary reproposal.

“It’s not so much that more people will be fiduciaries” under the proposal, Graff said, “but how they will get paid.” From an enforcement standpoint, DOL will get at the fiduciary problem “by limiting forms of compensation.”