The SEC staff recently issued its examination priorities for
2013.1 One item of interest to retirement market
participants is the staff 's intention to focus "on the
wide variety of payments made by advisers and funds to distributors
and intermediaries." According to the staff, such
"payments go by many names and are purportedly made for a
variety of services, most commonly revenue sharing, sub-TA,
shareholder servicing, and conference support." The staff
intends to assess whether the payments are being made in compliance
with applicable law, including Rule 12b-1 under the Investment
Company Act of 1940 (1940 Act). In other words, the staff will be
looking for payments that ostensibly are for non-distribution
services but instead are for distribution.
