U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center President and CEO David Hirschmann told Financial Advisor Magazine Tuesday the Chamber won’t decide if it will file suit against the Department of Labor’s coming fiduciary rule for pension fund advisors “until the ink is dry.”
The finalized rule is expected to be released publicly Wednesday. When enacted, the rule is expected to have a significant impact on compensation arising from sales of variable annuities, a popular retirement product issued by insurers.
While attacking the proposal as seriously flawed and needing significant improvement, Hirschmann said the chamber will follow its usual approach and wait to make a decision on whether to go to court until after its lawyers carefully analyze the hundreds of pages of regulations that will be coming out.
He gave two examples of the chamber’s thinking on deciding what rules to take to court.
Hirschmann said the chamber initially thought it would file suit against the Volcker Rule mandating banks separating their proprietary trading arms from their government-insured operations, but decided not to because the group felt it would be better to work for changes in Congress and the regulators.
On the other side of the coin, the group figured initially it would not be suing against the Dodd-Frank Act's mandated conflict mineral rules coming out of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but decided to go to court because companies told the chamber they didn’t know how they could comply with the regulations.