Peter Gulia Posted September 20, 2021 Share Posted September 20, 2021 Of the popular mutual fund providers, which furnish prospectuses in Spanish, and which do not? Peter Gulia PC Fiduciary Guidance Counsel Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 215-732-1552 Peter@FiduciaryGuidanceCounsel.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG5150 Posted September 20, 2021 Share Posted September 20, 2021 Side note: If a Plan Sponsor with a large Spanish-speaking employee population offers investments that don't have Spanish prospecti, is there a fiduciary breach somewhere? QKA, QPA, CPC, ERPATwo wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Gulia Posted September 20, 2021 Author Share Posted September 20, 2021 BG5150, I have not seen a court decision with reasoning on your question. Likewise, I have not seen a court decision finding, or even a complaint asserting, that a fiduciary breached by failing to consider the availability of a prospectus in Spanish as an element of the fiduciary’s evaluation of investment alternatives. Absent a specific command in a statute, rule, or governing document, whether a fiduciary breached turns on comparing the complained-of fiduciary’s conduct and decision-making to what would have been done using the care, skill, prudence, and diligence that would have been used by one experienced in managing a similar plan. For now, I’m just seeking to crowd-source a little factual information. Peter Gulia PC Fiduciary Guidance Counsel Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 215-732-1552 Peter@FiduciaryGuidanceCounsel.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Gulia Posted September 21, 2021 Author Share Posted September 21, 2021 American Funds (managed by Capital Group) provides prospectuses in Spanish? Any others? Peter Gulia PC Fiduciary Guidance Counsel Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 215-732-1552 Peter@FiduciaryGuidanceCounsel.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG5150 Posted September 21, 2021 Share Posted September 21, 2021 Not much help, but... QKA, QPA, CPC, ERPATwo wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Gulia Posted September 21, 2021 Author Share Posted September 21, 2021 Thank you for pointing us to the other thread. It mentions a point of law I’ve published on since the early 1990s. Securities issuers and intermediaries face at least three constraints in explaining an investment using a language beyond English. 1. Federal securities law prohibits using foreign-language materials unless the issuer also furnishes the complete prospectus in the same foreign language. Investment Company Act Release No. 6082 (June 23, 1970); American Funds Distributors Inc., SEC Staff No-Action Letter (publicly available Oct. 16, 1989). 2. If a broker-dealer or its representative allows a presentation to be translated, the broker-dealer “must take steps necessary to ensure that the translation of its presentation is accurate, regardless of whether it or its client [including a plan fiduciary] provides the translator.” Nat’l Ass’n of Securities Dealers (now Financial Industry Regulatory Authority [FINRA]), Interpretive Letter Applicability of NASD rules to a member’s use of a translator for group retirement plan enrollment presentations (Nov. 26, 2001), available at https://www.finra.org/rules-guidance/guidance/interpretive-letters/name-not-public-70. 3. A securities broker-dealer must not allow its representatives to use a language beyond English unless the broker-dealer has supervisors fluent in that other language. See FINRA, Disciplinary and Other FINRA Actions (for Apr. 2013), available at https://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/DisciplinaryAction/p241449.pdf; see generally James A. Fanto, Jill I. Gross & Norman S. Poser, Broker-Dealer Law and Regulation, chapter 13 “The Broker-Dealer’s Duty to Supervise” (Wolters Kluwer 5th ed. & Feb. 11, 2020 update). Those constraints apply to securities issuers and intermediaries. They might not apply, at least not directly, to an employer/sponsor/administrator not in a securities business. But the securities-law constraints might practically constrain the services an employer/administrator can get from an investment adviser or securities broker-dealer. That’s an aspect for why I hope to crowd-source my question: which funds have a prospectus in Spanish? Peter Gulia PC Fiduciary Guidance Counsel Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 215-732-1552 Peter@FiduciaryGuidanceCounsel.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now