The U.S. Labor Department (DOL) has proposed regulations that would greatly expand how retirement and pension plans can invest in ESG strategies and clarify the scope of ERISA plans' responsibility for proxy voting.  If adopted, the DOL's proposal, drafted by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), will reverse the former administration's regulations on ESG factors in retirement portfolios and ERISA fiduciaries' use of proxy voting powers in favor of social or political goals. 

Foes of the DOL’s proposed fiduciary rule suffered a setback last week when the House of Representatives passed an omnibus spending bill omitting any measures that would have stalled, hindered, or killed the proposal.  On the table during budget negotiations were riders and amendments to the bill that would have defunded the proposal, required a new comment period, or proposed an alternative standard altogether.  The new standard’s proponents, including the DOL, SEC, and the Obama administration say that the rule proposal which would require brokers to put their clients' interests ahead of their own in 401(k) and individual retirement accounts is vital to protecting workers saving for retirement from high-fee products that erode their savings.

A trust is a fiduciary arrangement that allows one party to transfer assets to a third party, or trustee, to hold assets on behalf of a single beneficiary or a number of beneficiaries. Trusts have myriad uses and are employed across a wide variety of property transfers, transactions, testamentary bequests, and business arrangements. They are so useful because they are so very flexible and can be custom tailored to restrict exactly how the assets are to be managed during the life of the trust, as well as how, when, and in what form the assets pass to the beneficiaries. Because trusts have such utility and so widely used, a large body of law has grown up around them. And since a key aspect of trusts is the placement of things of value in the care of a third party, the trustee, a corollary concept, fiduciary duty, has also grown to address the rights and responsibilities of trustees with respect to the property in their care, and with respect to the trust’s beneficiaries. Because of their importance to modern commerce and life events in general, over the course of three short posts, we will examine the history of trusts and the development of fiduciary duties, application of trust and fiduciary principles to investment funds, and we will explore some of the powers and duties of fund trustees. In this first post, we examine the historical development of trusts and the fiduciary concept.