Labor Department Proposes Fiduciary Conflict of Interest Rules — Again

On April 14, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reissued the long-awaited re-proposal of its regulation expanding the definition of “fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), and prescribing stricter conflict-of-interest rules that will apply to relationships between such fiduciaries and their customers (mainly retirement plans and IRAs). Along with the proposed regulation, the DOL proposed two related Prohibited Transaction Class Exemptions (PTCE) and amendments to six existing PTCEs that will also apply to relationships between fiduciaries and their retirement plan customers (the proposed regulation and the PTCE’s together, the “Proposal”).