CEI Praises Trump Move to Seek Fiduciary Rule Delay
The Trump Labor Department is seeking to delay the Obama administration’s controversial fiduciary rule, which imposes new restrictions and obligations on a broad swatch of people and companies that offer investment advice.
Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) financial policy expert John Berlau, a longtime critic of the rule and its detrimental impact on middle class savers and investors, praised the decision.
“The Trump administration is on a path to help American savers and investors with a new plan to delay the Obama Labor Department’s fiduciary rule, the most expensive regulation from the Obama administration last year. The fiduciary rule threatens the loss of access to investment advice and choices for millions of middle-class savers by making it too expensive and legally risky to do business with lower-dollar investors. For those reasons, too, the fiduciary rule threatens the livelihoods of thousands of Main Street brokers and insurance agents. Meanwhile, Congress never even intended for the Department of Labor to have that kind of power over financial professionals such as brokers, custodians, and insurance agents.
“Look at what happened in the United Kingdom after it implemented similar regulations a few years ago. By 2013, investment brokers had largely stopped serving British savers with portfolios below (then) $240,000 because the fees alone would not pay for servicing the accounts.”
The proposed delay of the fiduciary rule would extend the date for financial firms to comply from April 10, 2017 to June 9, 2017. CEI plans to submit comments during the forthcoming 15-day comment period.
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