Just last week we hit twice on (see here and here) the investment advice rules of the PPA going forward despite some pretty heavy criticism (including from us) that the DOL was basically regulating that conflicted advice is permissible.
Well, the new rules did hit the Federal Register on the 21st. But, just a day before the inauguration, it was announced that all pending regulations were being halted for review by the new administration.
I was a little uncertain what this meant for the investment advice rule. Does being on the Federal Register place it past the "pending" stage? Or did the fact that it wasn't to be effective until March mean that it was eligible for for this freeze?
Well, an informative article from Pensions and Investments has explained it clearly. The rule is affected, is on hold indefinitely, and, in the opinions of most of those quoted for the piece, not likely to ever go into effect in its current form.
This is the right move from the new administration and we hope to see a new version soon that does eliminate the possibility of individual advice coming directly from the mutual fund companies themselves. It never made sense to create even more confusion as to if the source of your investment advice is conflicted or not.
Stay tuned for more on this topic.
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