The Securities and Exchange Commission should pursue an effort to set new rules for broker-dealers and investment advisors in their work to burnish clients’ pots of gold, March 17 remarks by SEC Chairman Mary Jo White indicated. She made her comments at a meeting of the Securities industry and Financial Markets Association in Phoenix, Investment News reports.
White said the SEC should “implement a uniform fiduciary duty for broker-dealers and investment advisors where the standard is to act in the best interest of the investor.” According to Investment News, the other SEC commissioners are evenly split in their views on such new rules, with Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein supporting them and Michael Piwowar and Daniel Gallagher opposing them; White breaks the tie.
The SEC will pursue its own rules, White said, rather than working jointly with the Department of Labor (DOL), because the agencies are acting under different legal authority. Any effort the SEC pursues in this vein will be under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
White said that next she will have in-depth conversations with the other commissioners. She reportedly did not give a specific deadline for the SEC’s work on such a rule.
The SEC may not yet have embarked on a fiduciary rule, but the Obama Administration has announced that the DOL will soon unveil one of its own. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at a March 12 hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging reinforced the administration’s message on the proposed DOL regulations, and the Groom Law Group says that the DOL’s Employee Benefit Security Administration will target advisors for enforcement activity.
White said the SEC should “implement a uniform fiduciary duty for broker-dealers and investment advisors where the standard is to act in the best interest of the investor.” According to Investment News, the other SEC commissioners are evenly split in their views on such new rules, with Luis Aguilar and Kara Stein supporting them and Michael Piwowar and Daniel Gallagher opposing them; White breaks the tie.
The SEC will pursue its own rules, White said, rather than working jointly with the Department of Labor (DOL), because the agencies are acting under different legal authority. Any effort the SEC pursues in this vein will be under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
White said that next she will have in-depth conversations with the other commissioners. She reportedly did not give a specific deadline for the SEC’s work on such a rule.
The SEC may not yet have embarked on a fiduciary rule, but the Obama Administration has announced that the DOL will soon unveil one of its own. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at a March 12 hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging reinforced the administration’s message on the proposed DOL regulations, and the Groom Law Group says that the DOL’s Employee Benefit Security Administration will target advisors for enforcement activity.
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