While most people in the retirement industry agree that the Department of Labor has its heart in the right place in wanting to protect individuals from conflicts of interest, many dont believe the agency has gone about its rule-making in the right way and think the rules, as proposed, will actually do more harm than good to the individuals and small businesses the DOL claims it wants to help.
The DOL re-proposed its fiduciary rule mid-April. Under the proposal, brokers and advisers to individual retirement plans would have to follow the same stringent rules as registered investment advisers. That means that those giving advice to people about their retirement plans would have to put their clients best interests ahead of their own.
