Fiduciary Links: Who counts as a fiduciary under ERISA to expand

A short week last week leads to a short fiduciary links post. The most interesting news being the Department of Labor adding to its agenda the publishing of new regulations expanding the definition of "fiduciary" under ERISA to include consultants.

Matt Hutcheson summarizes the intent of the new regulations as, "Everybody who works with retirement plans should presume that they will owe a fiduciary duty or they will owe a duty for loyalty to those who they service."

The rest of the best links from the past week:

In the news/commentary:

• fi360's Kristina Fausti on KDKA's Sunday Business Page talking regulation and the impact on investors.
• Fee data still insufficient
• Bob Veres imagines the conversations that lead lawmakers to compromise investors' best interests
• New York Times looks at the banks that bundled bad debt and short sold them.

From the organizations/associations/government/academia:

• The top ranking Democrat and Republican on the Senate Banking Committee agreed to work together in continuing to craft their reform bill.
• The Government Accountability Office released a report on additional changes needed to the Form 5500

From the blogs:

• In response to the above New York Times article, a Seeking Alpha post points out that investor demand drives product creation and that pension fund managers share the blame for not fulfilling their fiduciary duties
• Fiduciary News asks you to vote on what were the biggest fiduciary stories of 2009?

Have a link we missed? Leave them in the comments section or email us at blog@fi360.com. For more of the best links during the week, make sure you follow us on Twitter.