Year: 2014

Scott Simon takes a closer look at the case’s allegations of self-dealing.

In the retirement plan marketplace, plan-provider bigness can mean a sub-optimal solution for both plan sponsors and plan participants.

How retaining a third-party 3(38) that is not independent of a record-keeper can result in an inferior and conflicted process.

Scott Simon argues the case for plan sponsors hiring a 3(38) fiduciary.

An SEC staff recommendation would gut the many protections provided by the fiduciary standard that have been developed over the centuries.

If the SEC goes ahead and issues some sort of ‘harmonized,’ disclosure-heavy fiduciary status rule, it will perpetuate unnecessary costs for many individual retail investors, writes Scott Simon.

If Wall Street were really interested in having a total commitment to the long-term interests of its clients, it would embrace a fiduciary standard, but it does just the opposite.

Choice in the context of a retirement plan means something quite different to providers that aren’t fiduciaries to a plan than to fiduciary plan providers.

It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, writes Scott Simon.

The motivations under the non-fiduciary and fiduciary business models are vastly different, which results in the recommendation of quite different financial products for clients, writes Scott Simon.

Fiduciaries must temper investors’ attraction to high returns, which can often result in the payment of unexpected taxes and exposure to unexpected losses.