DOL Extends Investment Advice Effective Date 

• Melanie Waddell

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has further extended the applicability and effective dates of the final rule on investment advice under the Pension Protection Act to May 17, 2010. 

As the DOL explains in the November 16 release announcing the extension, on January 21, 2009, the DOL published a final rule governing the provision of investment advice under the prohibited transaction provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). On March 20, the department extended the applicability and effective dates of the final regulation from March 23 to May 22. On May 22, the applicability and effective dates were further extended to Nov. 18. 

"The department since has determined that additional time is necessary to consider the legal and policy issues raised by comments on the final rule,” DOL states in the release. The “extension of the effective and applicability dates will afford the department the additional time to determine appropriate steps to be taken.”