Tag: SEC

Plan sponsors faced another year of rapid regulatory change in 2018, with important developments coming out of the DOL, IRS and other federal government agencies.

The Commission is requesting comment on how certain aspects of the proposed rules address how a security-based swap data repository could potentially satisfy its obligation to verify the terms of each security-based swap with both counterparties to the transaction.

In the conclusions chapter of the report, the Securities and Exchange Commission says respondents expressed generally positive assessments of the format and content of the Customer Relationship Summary.

ICI draws the conclusion that this system means fund shareholders are paying higher costs than is strictly necessary.

ICI created a prototype of a recommended summary shareholder report, tested it, and found the majority of investors agreed that the more concise document made it easier to compare funds.

Both the DOL and SEC have a September 2019 date for a final action on corresponding fiduciary and best interest rules—could they be collaborating?

Commissioner Stein also encouraged the SEC to implement “mandatory periodic disclosures about the value of investors’ 401(k) accounts to show how much income will likely be generated in retirement.”

A group of investor advocacy organizations is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to significantly revise its adviser customer relationship summary form requirements within its broader Regulation Best Interest proposal.

The agency is also proposing more disclosure to investors about ETFs, how they work and their costs.

The SEC's complaint alleges that the former executive led a scheme to add secret commissions to securities trades performed for at least six clients of State Street's transition management business, which helps institutional clients move their investments between asset managers or otherwise restructure large investment portfolios.

Navnoor Kang allegedly used his position to direct up to $2.5 billion in state business to registered representatives at two different broker/dealers.

The brokerage firm will pay more than $15 million in settlement.

The agency also adopted a new rule allowing fund companies to share information via the Internet.

The decision puts another layer of finality on the fate of the now-defunct Department of Labor fiduciary rule expansion, meaning the compliance landscape has shifted yet again for plan sponsors.

This would replace a pending requlation that would have required the disclosure to be made on Form N-PORT on a quarterly basis.

However, the deadlines for creating a liquidity risk management program and to limit illiquid investments to 15% of a fund’s portfolio remain unchanged: December 1, 2018, for larger fund groups and June 1, 2019, for smaller fund groups.

Brokers serving retirement plans and other institutional investors were accused of routing orders for equities to an offshore affiliate in Bermuda that “executed them on a riskless basis and opportunistically boosted profits by adding a mark-up or mark-down on the price of a security.”

The committee's initial focus will be on the corporate bond and municipal securities markets.