This quarter’s QPA Advocate Newsletter begins with two pleas. First, please allow time before, during, and after your upcoming committee meetings to discuss the various regulatory and litigation updates described below.

The end of the year is fast approaching. Many of you are tying up loose ends and hopefully preparing for some down time with your family and friends. With competition for your time and attention in mind, we wanted to close the year with a rapid-fire roundup of the retirement plan issues that have emerged over the last few weeks.

On October 31, 2023, the Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposed amendment to the definition of an investment advice fiduciary. Read on to find out more.

This month’s article starts with some litigation context, then moves into practical recordkeeper benchmarking perspectives that will serve your fiduciaries and participants well.

Federal courts have become much more inclined to deny companies’ and fiduciaries’ motions to dismiss, instead permitting participants’ claims to proceed into the discovery phase.

This month, QPA’s team takes this opportunity to return our focus directly to your employees and their financial wellness.

This month, QPA’s team of ERISA Attorneys is devoting additional energy to ensuring plan fiduciaries remain educated about recent developments and what might arise in the near future.

For more than 15 years, the American Bar Association Tax Section has provided me consistent opportunities to work directly with government officials on retirement plan-related matters.

Retirement plan fiduciaries have experienced significant changes over the last decade. We can attribute some of those changes to the Department of Labor’s regulatory and enforcement agenda, including the impact of increasing fee transparency, expanding the definition of fiduciary, and emphasizing the importance of cybersecurity.

While we work to assess opportunities provided by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 and await related governmental agency guidance, two additional developments merit additional discussion. Congress, President Biden, and the Federal courts have all had fiduciary items on their mind.