While the future of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule-making remains in doubt, new best-interest standards are being applied on advisors from several different angles.

In June, Nevada fast-tracked Senate Bill 383, which applies a fiduciary standard to all broker-dealers, sales representatives, investment advisors and advisor representatives.

“As more attention is being brought to this issue and states have seen the DOL bogged down, they’re taking matters into their own hands,” says Scott MacKillop, CEO of Denver-based First Ascent Asset Management. “In concept, that’s a good thing, but I’m concerned that we may end up with 50 different fiduciary standards to navigate.”

Nevada’s law requires that advisors undergo a fact-finding and discovery process each time a client is on-boarded, and on an ongoing basis. When a recommendation is rendered, advisors will have to disclose any potential gain that they may receive if their advice is followed.

Like the DOL rule, Nevada’s law is enforced through the plaintiff’s bar: If a client has lost money because of an advisor’s recommendation, and the advisor may have violated his or her fiduciary duty, the client can sue for the economic loss and all costs of litigation and attorney’s fees.

“The fiduciary issue is being raised in the consciousness of the public as well as policy makers,” says Skip Schweiss, managing director of retirement plan services and advisor advocacy at TD Ameritrade Institutional. “I think we could very well see more of this.”

Nevada is just the latest state to impose a more stringent fiduciary duty than already required by federal laws like ERISA. While a handful of states have already implemented their own standards, larger states such as New York and California are considering their own laws.

Elsewhere, states with less responsive legislatures may take months or years to apply their own standard. Florida, for example, has a legislative cycle in which lawmakers meet annually for 90 days to work on bills typically drafted and proposed during the previous year.

“Florida will probably not do anything at all with the fiduciary rule and applying it to insurance care until 2019,” says Michael Zmistowski, president of the Financial Planning Association of Tampa Bay. “That’s really moving fast for this snail’s-paced process, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. We want it to be right and deliberate.”

Zmistowski says that legislators in Florida, to this point, are largely unaware of the debate about fiduciary regulations.

The Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which extends ERISA’s best-interest rules for recommendations from workplace retirement plans to IRAs and IRA rollovers, became partially effective on June 9. However, key elements that would require a best-interest contract and full disclosures and permit clients to pursue advisors and broker-dealers via class action lawsuits are not slated to go into effect until January 1, 2018.

Last month, the DOL announced that it will seek additional comment on the rule’s January 1 full applicability date, a sign that further delays or revisions to the rule may be coming. At the same time, congressional Republicans are attempting to revise or repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the legislation that spurred the DOL’s rule-making efforts.

“We definitely have some concerns about the outcome of this request for information and any further delays in the rule’s implementation,” says Scott Beaudin, chairman of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors’ board of directors. “As an organization that supported the original fiduciary rule, we would have liked to have kept it on the original time line.”

Additional attempts at fiduciary enforcement are coming from professional organizations. In June, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners announced it was forming a taskforce to consider model fiduciary legislation covering insurance and annuity sales for states to adopt.

Also in June, the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards proposed significant changes to its standards of conduct and code of ethics that would tighten fiduciary requirements on all CFPs, essentially requiring them to adhere to a fiduciary standard in nearly every client interaction.

“The CFP Board is extending their standard beyond the planning component and to financial advice, which is actually a pretty big deal,” says Schweiss. “We think it’s a bold move in the direction of stronger fiduciary standards.”

Still to be determined is how the CFP Board will enforce its proposed standards—the organization is limited in its ability to investigate complaints and apply sanctions.

Between the DOL, the CFP Board and the states, financial advisors may now be bound to different fiduciary regulations depending on what type of account they are working with, where they are located, where their clients are located and what type of professional credentials they have achieved.

“When you take that ball of mess and start applying it to people’s businesses, it’s furiously burdensome,” says Zmistowski. “It takes us away from helping our clients. It’s all so split up, but we’ve got to deal with it.”

A recent study by insurance company Nationwide, based on a poll fielded in March and April, found that majorities of advisors and investors were aligned in support of more stringent fiduciary regulations.

Matt Matrisian, senior vice president for strategic initiatives at Concord, Calif.-based AssetMark, says that though most advisors support fiduciary regulations, many are confused by the overlapping regulations and paralyzed by uncertainty.

“It’s almost a no-brainer at this point that advisors need to go ahead and become conflict-free and document that they’re making sound recommendations based on their clients’ needs,” says Matrisian. “The DOL rule has been a catalyst for firms to move towards a fee-based model and become more efficient. Even if the DOL rule isn’t implemented, the world will continue to evolve, and taking steps towards becoming fiduciaries is increasingly important.”

Not to be outdone, the SEC may finally be looking toward a uniform fiduciary regulation for the entire financial services industry. At the beginning of June, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton requested comments on potential revisions of the DOL rule and “possible future actions” toward a fiduciary regulation of the SEC’s own.

In its comments to the SEC, the CFA Institute, which is responsible for the Chartered Financial Analyst credential, said that the SEC should begin by regulating the way industry professionals title themselves, arguing that brokers and their representatives should be referred to as “salespersons.”

Matrisian says that until the SEC acts, states present the best venue for additional fiduciary regulation.

“I think the states will potentially fall in line, especially if a larger state, like California, moves forward with legislation of its own,” says Matrisian. “I don’t think the industry will be able to operate under different fiduciary rules for very long, so the states will attempt to impose some sort of uniformity.”

In the absence of uniformity, commission and fee-based advisors will likely defer to the highest standard of care required by state regulations in an attempt to simplify their compliance requirements, says Matrisian.

As some Trump administration officials and members of Congress attempt to undo its fiduciary rule-making, the DOL is legally defending the regulation. In July, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold every aspect of the rule except the private right of action.

“I think that the odds of the rule getting to January 1 intact are extremely thin,” says Schweiss. “For a variety of reasons, the date will probably slip back to give the department enough time to do its work and enough time for the marketplace to adjust to it.”

Schweiss says that the private right of action, as well as the rule’s best interest contract requirements, are the least likely to survive another delay. In the absence of a private right of action, it’s unclear how the DOL’s regulation would be enforced.

While some may take the regulations, laws and proposals on the table as proof of momentum toward more stringent standards of conduct, MacKillop believes that supporters of the fiduciary rule still face an uphill battle against an entrenched opposition.

“The traditional broker-dealers are still far more powerful, they have greater resources than the independent community, and they employ those resources very effectively,” says MacKillop. “I don’t think the tide has turned. This will still be a long, hard battle.”

Advisors should be wary of the multiple levels of fiduciary regulation that could impact them, says Geoffrey Brown, CEO of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.

“Pay attention to what’s happening from a policy perspective, know what you’re doing from a compliance standpoint, and seek assistance from outside counsel to make sure that you’re interacting with your clients in a legal, permissible manner,” Brown says.