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February 28, 2017 at 05:51 AM
The Office of Management and Budget said Monday that it has finished its review of the Department of Labor’s request to delay implementation of its fiduciary rule.
OMB noted its completed review on its website.
After receiving a directive from President Donald Trump on Feb. 3 to review its fiduciary rule, and if it deems appropriate, to come up with a plan to revise the rulemaking, Labor’s acting secretary, Edward Hugler, filed in short order with the OMB to delay the rule’s April 10 compliance date.
Tom Clark, an attorney with The Wagner Law Group, said Tuesday that he expected the Labor Department to announce how much of a delay it was seeking as soon as Tuesday, adding that Labor “will not delay [the rule] until after the proper notice and comment.”
OMB’s finished review now tags the rule as “economically significant.”
Kristina Zanotti, a partner at K&L Gates in Washington, said Tuesday that such a label signals that the rule “requires greater scrutiny.”
Dan Crowley, a partner at K&L Gates who leads the firm’s global financial services policy practice, added on Tuesday that Trump’s executive memo directed Labor to review the delay request from a “cost/benefit” standpoint, adding that OMB is merely signaling that they are “finding there are significant” cost/benefit issues with the fiduciary rule, “giving [DOL] cover to delay” the rule.
Crowley said that he still anticipates a six-month delay.
With OMB’s approval on Monday, “in effect, the proposed rule was returned to the Department of Labor for publication in the Federal Register,” adds Fred Reish, a partner in Drinker Biddle & Reath’s employee benefits and executive compensation practice group in Los Angeles. ”I suspect that will happen this week or the first of next week.”
Reish believes Labor will issue a proposed rule with a 14-day comment period. “At the end of that, all of the comments will be reviewed by the DOL and a final rule will be drafted. Keep in mind, though, that the rule is only about the delay of the applicability date, so the drafting of the final rule should not take much work.”
