The CFP Board of Standards board of directors says it will release a second draft of its controversial ethical standards revisions at a public meeting on March 9.

   The meeting will be held at 9 a.m. MT at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, according to the CFP Board.

   The board, which has been working on a new ethical code since 2005, came under intense criticism from many of its certificant holders when it released its first revision in July.

   Much of the criticism centered on how the CFP Board decided to handle the issue of a CFP certificant's fiduciary responsibilities. Under the first proposal, holders of CFP marks can opt out of acting as a fiduciary if they clearly spell out their role to clients. The board said the option was necessary for CFP mark holders who don't act in a traditional advisory role, citing the example of educators.

   The financial advisory profession's other heavyweight organization, the Financial Planning Association, formally protested the change in comments it submitted to the CFP Board in September. The FPA argued the ethics code changes would "weaken, not strengthen, consumer protections" and only serve to confuse the public. The organization, along with other critics, called for a uniform requirement that CFP advisors conduct themselves as fiduciaries who put clients' interests first.

   The CFP Board said in a written statement that it received more than 300 responses to its first draft. "The comments to the original exposure draft provided many perspectives and information that proved valuable in the board's review of the proposed revisions," the board stated.

   The CFP Board's leadership has changed since the original release of the draft. The board's membership has gone through its annual shakeup, including the appointment of a new chair and chair-elect, and former CEO Sarah Ball Teslik, who led the ethics code revision efforts, resigned in October to take a position with the Houston-based Apache Corp. oil and gas company. Don I. Tharpe was named interim CEO pending the selection of a permanent chief executive.