President Vetoes Joint House Resolution

10 Jun President Vetoes Joint House Resolution

Yesterday’s Twitter update from the Department of Labor posted, among other topics, a thank you, of sorts, to the President of the United States for his veto and a White House tweet, “Today @POTUS took action to ensure Americans’ financial futures are protected: https://go.wh.gov/TxYmQW ”

In April 2016, the Department of Labor published a rule relating to the definition of the term “fiduciary” and the conflict of interest rule with respect to retirement investment advice. Subsequently, Congress voted on and passed along to the President a joint resolution, H.J. Res 88, to disapprove and nullify the DOL rule.

(The rule defines who is a fiduciary with respect to pension and retirement plans. Under current law, a person who provides investment advice has a fiduciary obligation that requires the person to provide advice in the sole interest of plan participants and beneficiaries. The rule changes the definition of “investment advice” to treat people who provide investment advice to pension and retirement plans for a fee or other compensation as fiduciaries in a wider array of advice relationships.)

In the President’s veto statement he said, “This rule is critical to protecting Americans’ hard-earned savings and preserving their retirement security.

The outdated regulations in place before this rulemaking did not ensure that financial advisers act in their clients’ best interests when giving retirement investment advice.”  

• For additional information at the DOL, please read these blog posts. https://blog.dol.gov/?s=conflict+of+interest
• What’s TAG’s take on the DOL ruling from April? Here are two posts on the responsibilities of a Fiduciary and what that means to you.
• For more information on the 114^th Congress joint resolution, here’s a link to the congressional website.