Labor Dept. Won’t Enforce the Obama-Era Fiduciary Rule

The Labor Department won’t be enforcing the fiduciary rule—at least for now—after a federal appeals court in Louisiana vacated the rule, a department spokesman told Bloomberg Law March 16.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a 2-1 decision late March 15 vacated the Obama-era rule that aims to regulate the advice given to retirement savers. Judges Edith H. Jones and Edith Brown Clement held that the Labor Department exceeded its regulatory authority by implementing the rule that includes a new definition of investment-advice fiduciary and redefining exemptions to provisions concerning fiduciaries that appear in the Employee ...