Foley & Lardner LLP Partner Jim Lundy offered his analysis in the ThinkAdvisor article, “New SEC Guidance Tackles How to Handle Conflicts of Interest,” on the importance of the newly released SEC guidelines on conflicts of interest for investment advisers.
Lundy said, “This is one of the first substantive pieces of guidance on Reg BI for the brokerage industry and the fiduciary standard for investment advisers. As such, brokerage and investment advisory firms should give this a close study and apply it to their business model and compliance and supervision programs as they best see fit to do so.”
Lundy continued, “The fact that the guidance is coming out for both Reg BI and the fiduciary standard for investment advisers in one bulletin for both is indicative of the continuing conflation of these two standards that we have been seeing for the past few years.”
“We are still not at a universal fiduciary standard, but it would not be a surprise for the Division of Examinations and the Division of Enforcement under this regime to continue to push these standards closer to alignment,” he added.
