Warren Ups War of Words in 401(k) Fiduciary Fight

401k, Elizabeth Warren, retirement

You never know who's listening.

Elizabeth Warren, the Senate’s favorite scribe, fired off yet another letter last week, this time to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, urging the latter to implement the fiduciary rule post haste.

She cited comments made by financial services companies during earnings calls to bolster her case, noting “that they are prepared to comply with the rule in its current form and that many believe it to be in the best interests of their customers.”

In typical Warren fashion, she provided text from some of the companies’ calls, many of whom she previously pressed the SEC to investigate specifically for their comments made about the fiduciary rule.

The letter follows the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposal to further delay the Fiduciary Rule’s full applicability, including the Best Interest Contract exemption, from January 2018 until July 2019.

“Such a delay would endanger billions of dollars in Americans’ hard-earned retirements savings, and, if you enact the delay, it would ignore the preparation and positive outlook on the rule that many financial services and insurance companies have repeatedly expressed,” Warren wrote. “As millions of Americans diligently save for a secure retirement, only to have their hard-earned savings squandered by conflicted advisers to the tune of $17 billion per year, workers need you to stand in their corner and fully implement this rule as soon as possible.”

Warren added that lobbyists for the financial services and insurance industries have repeatedly made “alarmist claims about the rule’s effects on businesses and investors.”

However, the earnings calls “reveal that companies were well-prepared for the rule’s implementation, compliance is not overly burdensome, and the rule was consistent with companies’ goals of putting their clients’ interests first.

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