At the heart of the debate surrounding the Department of Labor's effort to enforce a fiduciary standard of care throughout the retirement services industry is the question of whether or not brokers of retirement products should be regulated as advisors, especially if they market themselves as such.
But what happens when an RIA makes a commission on a retirement product after marketing themselves as a fee-only advisor?
In the case of advisors designated to carry credentials from the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, the consequences of a fee-only advisory misrepresenting itself were made clear when a federal judge recently threw out a claim against the standards board.
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Nick Thornton
Nick Thornton is a financial writer covering retirement and health care issues for BenefitsPRO and ALM Media. He greatly enjoys learning from the vast minds in the legal, academic, advisory and money management communities when covering the retirement space. He's also written on international marketing trends, financial institution risk management, defense and energy issues, the restaurant industry in New York City, surfing, cigars, rum, travel, and fishing. When not writing, he's pushing into some land or water.
