DOL Fiduciary Rule Heading to OMB as Obama Gives Final State of the Union

Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America and a staunch advocate of DOL's fiduciary rule, says the lawmakers plan to move their bills through the House Education and Workforce Committee and then through the House "sooner rather than later." However, "I don't see them being enacted, since the president would never sign them, and I'm not aware of any must-pass legislation [that the bills could be attached to] on the immediate horizon."

Meanwhile, Americans for Annuity Protection says that law firms are "actively being interviewed" to help in lawsuits to challenge DOL's rule on the basis that DOL "acted beyond its authority and/or had no economic basis for proposing the rule."

AAP says it is now working to build www.saveIRAs.com as a "consumer grassroots website where annuity owners can go to tell their saving success stories and express their fears for annuity access and loss of annuity professionals if the DOL rule is not fixed."

Washington Analysis predicts that the controversial best interest contract exemption (BIC, or BICE) will survive "largely as proposed," with changes only being made as to "when" the contract between the client and broker must be signed.

The BIC proposal's "robust new disclosure requirements" will likely be made more flexible in the final rule, Washington Analysis opines, with at a minimum the disclosure requirements being "phased in over time" to ease the compliance burden.

The rule as proposed required descriptions of material conflicts of interest, a clear table that presents all fees and who receives them, and information on whether the financial institution offers any proprietary products or receives any third-party payments related to underlying investments.

The chance that a fiduciary rule by the SEC would usurp DOL's rule is also slim to none.

The securities regulator's plan to release — or pass — its own fiduciary rulemaking this year will be hampered by the agency taking on two new commissioners, Hester Peirce and Lisa Fairfax. Confirmation hearings for the two are said to be scheduled this month by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ark.