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July 11, 2017 at 01:26 PM
House lawmakers plan to convene a hearing Thursday to discuss the impact of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule on the capital markets. The hearing will focus on a draft bill put forth by Rep. Ann Wagner, R.-Mo., that seeks to kill the fiduciary rule and instead impose a best interest standard on broker-dealers’ investment recommendations.
The Consumer Federation of America sent a letter Tuesday to members of the committee expressing “strong opposition” to the measure, stating that it “would dramatically weaken existing protections for retirement savers without providing meaningful new protections for investors in non-retirement accounts.”
Thursday’s hearing will be held by the House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment.
Barbara Roper, the Consumer Federation’s director of investor protection, along with Micah Hauptman, the group’s financial services counsel, argued in the letter that Wagner’s bill would repeal Labor’s rule “just as it is beginning to deliver the best interest advice that retirement savers need and deserve.”
Since the rule was finalized more than a year ago, “firms have announced implementation plans that show that the rule is reducing the cost of advice, improving the quality of investment products, and preserving access to advice through both fee and commission accounts for even the smallest account holders,” Roper and Hauptman wrote.
