Labor Department sends fiduciary rule update to OMB

Approval may be moot as the new administration could easily quash it

The Labor Department has sent its latest version of the fiduciary rule update to the Office of Management and Budget for a final review.

Once it’s approved by the OMB, the updated rule, which aligns with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation Best Interest, would be released by the Labor Department and published in the Federal Register.

The approval and release of the updated rule may be moot, however, since the timing of its review and publication makes easy nullification possible by the incoming Biden Administration.

“If there’s not a second term of the Trump administration, it’s quite likely that the DOL fiduciary rule, as the Trump administration envisions, is a dead letter,” Brad Campbell, the former head of the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, told participants in a recent webcast conducted by Faegre Drinker, where he is a partner.

Campbell said the update would had to have been filed by last Friday, Nov. 20, to avoid the issue.

[More: Election results point toward divided government]

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here