“The Department of Labor is about midway through a public comment period on its ‘fiduciary rule’ proposal to require financial advisers to act solely in their clients’ best interests when giving advice and selling investments for retirement accounts.”
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“Case in point: At a recent retirement-industry conference in Washington, Robert Reynolds, the chief executive of the mutual fund company Putnam Investments, argued that a fiduciary standard was unnecessary because ‘the client’s best interest is our best interest without a doubt.’ Better Markets, a nonpartisan group for financial reform, quickly posted an excerpt from a Putnam ‘conflict-of-interest’ disclosure on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission which states: ‘Doing business with our affiliates could involve conflicts of interest if, for example, we use affiliated products and services when those products and services are not in our clients’ best interests.’’ (Emphasis added.)”
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Read the full New York Times article by Teresa Tritch here.
