Chairman Jay Clayton
April 24, 2018
Last week, the Commission proposed for public comment a
significant rulemaking package that would (1) require broker-dealers to act
in the best interest of their retail customers; (2) reaffirm and in some
cases clarify the fiduciary duty owed by investment advisers to their clients;
and (3) require both broker-dealers and investment advisers to clarify for
all retail investors the type of investment professional they are, and key facts
about their relationship, as well as prohibit the use of "adviser" and "advisor"
in certain circumstances, as such titles may mislead retail
investors.
This rulemaking is designed to serve our Main Street
investors. In particular, it is
intended to bring legal requirements and mandated disclosure in line with
investor expectations. I found
engagement directly with retail investors and the financial professionals who
serve them during the pre-rulemaking period, including a roundtable in St.
Louis, to be tremendously useful. I believe we need to continue that
effort by reaching out directly to investors and other market participants
across the country.
I have asked the SEC staff to put together a series of
roundtables, focused on the retail investor, to be held in different cities
around the country — including in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, and Miami. These roundtables are intended to help
us gather much-needed information straight from those who will be most directly
impacted by our rulemaking. I
intend to participate personally in many of these roundtables.
These efforts are one component of a broad engagement
effort on this issue. For example,
we invite investors to provide their views on key questions that will help us
shape the disclosure designed for them.
Investors may respond to these key questions using a short, fillable form. Moreover, the SEC's Investor Advocate
is in the process of performing investor testing, and we anticipate making the
results of that investor testing available in the public comment
file.
More information about these events will be announced in
the upcoming weeks. If you are
interested in participating in one of these events, staff contact information
will be made available in a forthcoming press release; we urge you to reach out,
and we will seek to accommodate you.