Don’t say ‘fiduciary rule’; DOL terms next attempt a ‘retirement security’ reg

investmentnews.com:

A Department of Labor official said the agency’s next attempt at setting investment advice standards for retirement accounts will not just be a rehash of previous fiduciary rules.

“We’re intentionally referring to it as the retirement security rule rather than the fiduciary rule,” DOL assistant secretary Lisa Gomez told reporters Monday on the sidelines of a conference in Washington about retirement financing sponsored by TIAA. “The reason is we want to signal … that this is not a regurgitation of the old rule.”

In September, the DOL sent a proposal formally titled “conflict of interest in investment advice” to the Office of Management and Budget for review. The abstract says the measure would revise the regulatory definition of the term “fiduciary” to “more appropriately define when persons who render investment advice for a fee to employee benefit plans and IRAs are fiduciaries within the meaning” of federal retirement law.

If the OMB approves the proposal, the DOL will release it for public comment — a move that observers expect to occur later this month.

It would mark another step in the agency’s efforts over more than a decade to reform advice rules for retirement investing. The goal has been to ensure financial advisors put their clients’ and customers’ interests in building a nest egg ahead of advisors’ revenue interests.

An Obama administration fiduciary rule was struck down by a federal appeals court. The Biden DOL has let stand a Trump administration version of the rule but indicated when it did so that more rulemaking was coming.

Gomez did not provide details about how the latest proposal would differ from previous versions nor did she confirm a timeline.

“It’s a high priority for the White House and for the