Reg BI Enforcement to Zero In on Recommendations

The Securities and Exchange Commission intends to shift its enforcement focus regarding Regulation Best Interest to “making a recommendation,” according to the agency’s strategic plan for the next four years.

“I think it’s significant that the Strategic Plan explicitly references the agency’s intention to enforce Reg BI in the context of ‘making a recommendation,’” Kurt Gottschall, a partner in Haynes Boone, and a former director of the SEC’s Denver Regional Office, told ThinkAdvisor Tuesday in an email.

The Strategic Plan for 2022-2026 states that the SEC intends to bring “cases that matter to all parts of the SEC’s mission — whether it be deceptive conduct by registered or private funds, offering or accounting frauds, insider trading, market manipulation, failures to act in retail customers’ best interests when making a recommendation, reporting violations, best execution and failure to act in accordance with the fiduciary duty, or any other form of misconduct.”

The language regarding failure to act in retail customers’ best interest “indicates the SEC is ready to move beyond basic compliance and disclosure obligations to scrutinize the placement of retail investors’ funds in advisory versus brokerage accounts, whether complex or risky products were offered to those investors, and registered representatives’ consideration of costs,” Gottschall said. “Broker-dealers should pay particular attention to their compensation arrangements with registered representatives to evaluate incentives and resulting conflicts.”

The SEC is seeking comment on the plan.