208 pages. "This document contains a final regulation defining who is a 'fiduciary' of an employee benefit plan under [ERISA] as a result of giving investment advice to a plan or its participants or beneficiaries. The final rule also applies to the definition of a 'fiduciary' of a plan (including an [IRA]) under the Internal Revenue Code ... The final rule treats persons who provide investment advice or recommendations for a fee or other compensation with respect to assets of a plan or IRA as fiduciaries in a wider array of advice relationships....

"[The DOL] has determined that, in light of the importance of the final rule's consumer protections and the significance of the continuing monetary harm to retirement investors without the rule's changes, an applicability date of April 10, 2017, is adequate time for plans and their affected financial services and other service providers to adjust to the basic change from non-fiduciary to fiduciary status. The Department has also decided to delay the application of certain requirements of certain of the exemptions being finalized with this rule....

"The Department has also sought to preserve beneficial business models for delivery of investment advice by separately publishing new exemptions from ERISA's prohibited transaction rules that would broadly permit firms to continue to receive many common types of fees, as long as they are willing to adhere to applicable standards aimed at ensuring that their advice is impartial and in the best interest of their customers. Rather than create a highly prescriptive set of transaction-specific exemptions, the Department instead is publishing exemptions that flexibly accommodate a wide range of current types of compensation practices, while minimizing the harmful impact of conflicts of interest on the quality of advice.... This broad regulatory package aims to require advisers and their firms to give advice that is in the best interest of their customers, without prohibiting common compensation arrangements by allowing such arrangements under conditions designed to ensure the adviser is acting in accordance with fiduciary norms and basic standards of fair dealing."  MORE >>