Financial Planning: Susan Conrad Weighs in on Latest DoL Proposal

Earlier this week, the Department of Labor indicated it will propose new exemptions— focused on certain classes of “clean” mutual fund shares—to its highly contested fiduciary rule.

In this Financial Planning article, I share my take on the proposed changes. An excerpt is below, or the article can be found in its entirety here.

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... Another Exemption?

How a clean shares exemption could fit in with the broader fiduciary rule remains unclear, but consumer advocates who have argued for legally binding provisions requiring retirement advisors to act in their clients' best interest are wary …

Susan Conrad, director of retirement plan advisors at Plancorp, a St. Louis-based RIA, sees a clean share exemption and, potentially, others as effectively superseding the BIC.

"[T]he new avenue is to put in parallel exemptions," Conrad says. "The idea is that if we can't get the old ones off the books, we can just let them die on the vine ― because the new ones will cover every prohibited transaction the old ones did. The new, streamlined exemptions would just be the easier route for advisors."