CFA joined a diverse group of leading worker, consumer, and investor advocates in a letter urging the Department of Labor (DOL) to expeditiously update and strengthen the rules governing retirement investment advice. This vital action is needed to help protect workers and retirees from the harmful conflicts of interest that cost them tens of billions of dollars in retirement savings every year.

The letter points to several critical shortcomings of the DOL’s current fiduciary rule, in particular the regime’s five-part definition of when investment advice is “fiduciary advice” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). As a result of these shortcomings, it is easy for retirement investment advice providers to avoid fiduciary responsibility even when retirement savers are relying on them as trusted advisers.

As stated in the letter, “Last spring, in its regulatory agenda, the Department correctly acknowledged the need to update the fiduciary rule to protect retirement investors from investment advice tainted by conflicts of interest.” The letter pressed the Department to move forward with that agenda and outlines several steps that the DOL should take to strengthen the rules governing retirement investment advice.

“The current rule allows for conflicted investment advice that puts the retirement savings of millions of Americans at risk and is inconsistent with the letter and spirit of ERISA, the statute whose purpose is to promote the retirement security of workers and retirees,” said Micah Hauptman, Director of Investor Protection for CFA. “The DOL can and should better protect Americans’ retirement savings by strengthening the rules that govern the provision of retirement investment advice, and we urge the DOL to take this critical action with all deliberate speed.”