Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. (Photo: Bloomberg)
Welcome back to Human Capital! I'm Melanie Waddell in Washington, bringing you the latest insights on the players influencing the financial services regulatory landscape.
New House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., kicks off the week as Democrats officially took control of the House Thursday. Waters promises to crack down on abusive financial practices, ensure "strong safeguards" are in place to prevent another financial crisis and conduct keen oversight of regulators — including the Securities and Exchange Commission and its much-anticipated Regulation Best Interest.
Scan down to see how attorneys are reading the tea leaves on the likelihood that Reg BI, part of the agency's advice-standards package, will get finalized in the first quarter.
Waters was among 35 House Democrats who complained to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton late last year that the agency's Regulation Best Interest — part of the securities regulator's much-anticipated advice standards package — was not a true fiduciary standard.
Industry officials see Waters raking Clayton over the coals once the advice-standards package is finalized. Will it happen in the first half of 2019, as officials have predicted? Bob Plaze, former co-director of the SEC's Division of Investment Management who's now a partner at Proskauer Rose in Washington, told me he sees the government shutdown throwing a wrench in the SEC's plans. "The SEC is not open for the staff to work on it," Plaze said, adding that he believes the SEC commissioners "are a ways off from figuring out what to do" with the advice-standards package.
Plaze said that he interpreted Clayton's recent comments to the Senate Banking Committee that the agency may use the same language to describe the standard of conduct that investment advisors and brokers must adhere to when advising retail clients under the SEC's advice-standards package as "treading water."
