SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said Wednesday that he believes there's "enough overlap" in the mandates of the Commission and the Labor Department to achieve "more clarity" around a uniform fiduciary rulemaking.
"It's clear that this [fiduciary] is an issue we all can engage on," Clayton said Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. The "DOL rule is on the books, … we're in a position where we could have different standards for the individual investor — that doesn't seem right. I think there will be consensus among everybody involved … that the market would benefit from greater clarity here."
During his discussion with David Hirschmann, president and CEO of Chamber's Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, Clayton also said that "it would be extremely disappointing if whatever direction we go [on a fiduciary rulemaking] there's a substantial reduction in choice for the retail investors; I don't want that choice to disappear for the Main Street investors."
Clayton said in mid-July at the Economic Club of New York, during his first public comments, that he wants to hear from individual investors and others about whether the Commission should proceed with its own fiduciary standard for broker-dealers and investment advisors.
In late June, Clayton told lawmakers that the agency was moving ahead on a coordinated fiduciary rule with Labor, and on June 1 the agency announced that it was seeking comment on a laundry list of issues to inform "possible future actions" by the SEC on a fiduciary duty rulemaking.
SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar told Labor in a Tuesday comment letter that the fiduciary rule is troubling because it will "extend beyond retirement accounts and will be disruptive of the broker-client relationship in general."
Labor's fiduciary rule "will have a dramatic impact on the provision of financial services to retail clients throughout the financial services industry," Piwowar, a Republican, said in his response to Labor's request for information.
While noting his "many concerns" about the rule, Piwowar pointed to two other trouble spots: The rule "is dismissive of the efficacy of conflict of interest disclosure, a view that runs contrary to decades of Commission experience; and fails sufficiently to distinguish 'selling' activities from 'advice' activities, undermining the Commission's longstanding approach to regulation of broker-dealers and investment advisors."
Reiterating his commitment to reining in "bad actors," Clayton said Wednesday that "the costs to all of us of bad actors is astronomical."
