DOL Issues Investment Advice Guidance to Replace 2016 Regulations

The Department of Labor’s (DOL’s) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has released a guidance package entitled Improving Investment Advice for Workers and Retirees Exemption. The guidance package includes a News Release, Fact Sheet, Proposed Class Exemption, and a Technical Amendment.

This guidance, to a greater or lesser degree, is meant to replace the DOL’s 2016 final regulations and accompanying exemptions on fiduciary investment advice. After several implementation delays, that 2016 guidance was struck down as “regulatory overreach” by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018.