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The DOL's Fact Sheet on the Final Fiduciary Rule
Employee Benefits Security Administration [EBSA], U.S. Department of Labor [DOL] Link to more items from this source
[Guidance Overview]
Apr. 6, 2016
"Covered investment advice is defined as a recommendation to a plan, plan fiduciary, plan participant and beneficiary and IRA owner for a fee or other compensation, direct or indirect, as to the advisability of buying, holding, selling or exchanging securities or other investment property, including recommendations as to the investment of securities or other property after the securities or other property are rolled over or distributed from a plan or IRA....

"[T]he fundamental threshold element in establishing the existence of fiduciary investment advice is whether a 'recommendation' occurred. A 'recommendation' is a communication that, based on its content, context, and presentation, would reasonably be viewed as a suggestion that the advice recipient engage in or refrain from taking a particular course of action.... if the communications do not meet [this] definition of 'recommendations' ... the communications will be considered non-fiduciary....

"Education as defined in the rule will not constitute advice regardless of who provides the educational information (e.g. the plan sponsor or service provider), the frequency with which the information is shared, or the form in which the information and materials are provided[.] ...

"The Best Interest Contract Exemption permits firms to continue to rely on many current compensation and fee practices, as long as they meet specific conditions intended to ensure that financial institutions mitigate conflicts of interest and that they, and their individual advisers, provide investment advice that is in the best interests of their customers.... In addition to the Best Interest Contract Exemption, the Department is issuing a Principal Transactions Exemption, which permits investment advice fiduciaries to sell or purchase certain recommended debt securities and other investments out of their own inventories to or from plans and IRAs....

"Compliance with the new requirements will not begin to be required until one year after the final rule is published in the Federal Register -- in other words, April 2017."

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