"On February 8, 2017 ... Chief Judge Barbara Lynn of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas delivered the DOL a sweeping victory in the third decided challenge to the final conflict of interest regulation and related exemptions ... The win adds to the DOL's scorecard, but the Fiduciary Rule's toughest test yet may be the Presidential Memorandum, issued on February 3, 2017."

"The SEC has more than eighty years' experience regulating financial markets and services ... and has been specifically charged by Congress with studying the propriety of adopting a uniform fiduciary standard. The [DOL's] authority, by contrast, is more narrowly prescribed and is generally restricted to employee benefit plans. It possesses neither the expertise nor the authority to regulate financial services in a manner that properly balances the needs of retirement savers and small businesses. Because the [DOL] lacks affirmative authority to regulate financial services outside the context of employee benefit plans, it has sought to promulgate this new regulatory regime through its exemptive authority under ERISA. That is, the Department seeks to convert its authority to lift regulatory burdens into a means to impose them, resulting in the most sweeping change in retirement planning since the adoption of ERISA itself. By doing so, the Department has disregarded the regulatory framework established by Congress, exceeded its authority, and assumed for itself regulatory power that is vested in the SEC in ways that will harm retirement savers." [Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. v. Perez, No. 3:16-cv-01476-G (N.D. Tex. filed June 1, 2016)]