Why Does The SEC Care About Elder Clients

The SEC is conducting an exam sweep that focuses on retirement advice being given to clients of investment advisors and broker-dealers. Some commentators see this as a turf war between the SEC and the Department of Labor (DOL) because the sweep focuses on things that may come under the DOL's jurisdiction.

Whether the exam sweep intrudes upon the DOL's purview is really not the point. The real take away as I see it is the general subject matter and those clients who would be most implicated.

This past year, the SEC and FINRA issued a joint report with their findings from an exam sweep focused on elder clients. This current SEC sweep can, at least in part, be seen as an extension of that work; elder clients may be the ones most impacted by retirement account advice.