It's just business as usual for those who have been paying attention to their fiduciary duty all along.

As the dust begins to settle on the fallout of the Supreme Court's unanimous Tibble v. Edison, one thing has become apparent – when it comes to a plan sponsor's fiduciary duty, nothing has really changed. Sure we hear talk of unintended consequences, (for a quick list, read, "10 Unexpected Changes Tibble Really Brings to 401k Fiduciary Providers and Plan Sponsors," FiduciaryNews.com, May 26, 2015), but if you dig right into the true meaning of Tibble, to borrow the infamous words from, well, you know who, "What difference, at this point, does it make."

From its very beginning, we all knew the Supreme Court case wasn't on the merits of "fiduciary." Instead, the crux of this particular case rested on the arcane definition of a legal technicality, namely, the applicability of a statute of limitations to an ongoing duty. In other words, it was all about the something only a lawyer would love. The rest of us common folk? We could just move one, there's nothing to see here.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Christopher Carosa

Chris Carosa has been writing a weekly article and monthly column for BenefitsPRO online and BenefitsPRO Magazine since 2011 and is a nationally recognized award-winning writer, researcher and speaker. He’s written seven books, including From Cradle to Retire: The Child IRA; Hey! What’s My Number? – How to Increase the Odds You Will Retire in Comfort; A Pizza The Action: Everything I Ever Learned About Business I Learned By Working in a Pizza Stand at the Erie County Fair; and the widely acclaimed 401(k) Fiduciary Solutions. Carosa is also Chief Contributing Editor of the authoritative trade journal FiduciaryNews.com and publisher of the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, a weekly community newspaper he founded in 1989. Currently serving as President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and with more than 1,000 articles published in various publications, he appears regularly in the national media. A “parallel” entrepreneur, he actively runs a handful of businesses, including a small boutique investment adviser, providing hands-on experience for his writing. A trained astrophysicist, he also holds an MBA and has been designated a Certified Trust and Financial Advisor. Share your thoughts and story ideas with him through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/christophercarosa/)and Twitter (https://twitter.com/ChrisCarosa).