Fred Reish Quoted in InvestmentNews on Harmonizing Fiduciary Standards

Los Angeles partner Fred Reish was quoted in an InvestmentNews article titled “Hitting the Right Note: Speculation is Mounting About What a New Fiduciary Rule Will Look Like as the DOL and SEC Try to Harmonize Advice Standards.”

While the implementation of the Department of Labor (DOL)’s fiduciary rule has been delayed 18 months, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been working on drafting its own fiduciary rule that would apply to all types of financial advice, unlike the DOL rule, which only applies to retirement advice. The two agencies are trying to “harmonize” the regulations and ideally create a single, uniform standard for both investment advisers and brokers.

Fred states that he anticipates that the SEC’s regulation will have tougher disclosure standards for brokers, and that more individualized disclosures will be more helpful to investors.

“We’re trending toward the day where financial institutions will have a protected page on their website for every investor, but we’re not there yet,” Fred said.