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SEC to Persevere on Fiduciary Duty Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will proceed with its work on investment advice standards rules and oversight of advisors. SEC Chair Mary Jo White made that announcement on Feb. 19 at the Practising Law Institute conference in Washington, D.C.

According to Investment News, White said that the SEC will continue the effort even though two of the five commissioners left the SEC and have not yet been replaced. White added that the SEC has pursued work on rules under similar circumstances in the past.

Commissioners Luis Aguilar, a Democrat, and Daniel Gallagher, a Republican, have left the SEC. Democrat Lisa Fairfax and Republican Hester Peirce have been nominated to fill the vacancies, but the Senate has not begun confirmation procedures.

In fact, so heightened is the SEC’s focus on increasing oversight of investment advisors that it has eased its examination of brokers, Reuters reports SEC officials as saying. White made that clear in her remarks, saying that she was acting to develop " a workable program for third-party reviews to enhance the compliance of registered investment advisors."

Jane Jarocho, associate director of the SEC office that oversees investment advisor examinations, offered some insights into why the agency is shifting its efforts. According to Reuters, she said that not only is the number of advisors registering with the SEC increasing — by more than 500 per year — so has the complexity of the SEC’s exams of advisors in the wake of the 2010 expansion of the SEC’s powers to oversee private equity funds and hedge funds.