The Securities and Exchange Commission posted an Open Meeting Agenda for June 5, 2019, when the Commission will vote on whether to adopt Regulation Best Interest, the related Form CRS Relationship Summary and a standard of conduct for registered investment advisers (“RIAs”). The agenda is available at: https://www.sec.gov/news/openmeetings/2019/agenda060519.htm. It is not known whether the final Regulation Best Interest, Form CRS and the standard of conduct will be significantly revised based on comments received since their original proposal.
Regulation Best Interest, as originally proposed, would require broker-dealers to act in the best interests of their retail customers, although the proposed rule did not define the term “best interest.” The proposed rule would require that certain conflicts of interest between a broker-dealer and his or her customer be either disclosed or, in some cases, eliminated. The proposed rule would also require broker-dealers and RIAs to provide a short form to their customers, summarizing salient facts about their relationship.
A competing, and stricter, rule, imposing a fiduciary standard on broker-dealers and RIAs for sales to retirement plans and originally proposed by the Department of Labor (“DOL”), but held unenforceable by the Fifth Circuit, is once again on the DOL’s agenda. The DOL’s Spring 2019 regulatory agenda lists a notice of proposed rulemaking for December 2019 for the “Fiduciary Rule and Prohibited Transaction Exemptions.” The regulatory agenda is available at: https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201904&RIN=1210-AB82.