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Comments of Change to Win on 

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning 

 Investment Advice—Participants and Beneficiaries

RIN1210-AB35 

Change to Win, a federation representing 5.5 million union members 

in five national and international labor organizations (the International 

Brotherhood of Teamsters, Laborers’ International Union of North 

America, Service Employees International Union, United Farm Workers, 

and United Food and Commercial Workers International Union), submits 

these comments in response to the Department of Labor’s notice of a 

proposed rule concerning Investment Advice to Participants and 

Beneficiaries in individual account and similar plans. 75 Fed. Reg. 9360 

(March 2, 2010). The proposal would replace the final rule published on 

January 21, 2009, which was withdrawn by notice published on November 

20, 2009, and would implement provisions of the statutory prohibited 

transaction exemption contained in the Pension Protection Act of 2006 

(PPA). The proposed rule addresses the provision of investment advice to 

participants and beneficiaries in individual account plans such as 401(k) 

plans. Among other things, the proposed rule would require investment 

advisors to disclose their fees and obtain a certification that any computer 

model used to provide investment advice is objective and unbiased. 

Change to Win supports the new proposed rule. 

Significant questions were raised concerning the scope and propriety 

of the rule published in January 2009 and withdrawn in November 2009. 

Commentators including members of Congress criticized the original rule 

because it expanded the exemption beyond the scope intended by the PPA 

and threatened to deprive workers of the objective investment advice they 

needed in order to protect their retirement savings. 

Change to Win was established to build a new movement of working 

people that can meet the challenges of the global economy and restore the 

American Dream: a paycheck that can support a family, affordable health 

care, a secure retirement, and dignity on the job. We commend the 

Department for delaying and withdrawing the original rule and for 

proposing a substitute that closely adheres to the intent of the legislation 

and has at its heart a genuine concern for workers and the accurate and 

unbiased advice and information they need to safeguard their retirement 

investments. A continuing series of financial scandals strongly 

demonstrate the need for increased, significant and substantive protections 
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for participants. Rules implementing the exemption intend by Congress 

must be narrowly drawn and must require full disclosure to participants 

and beneficiaries even when the investment advice falls within the narrow 

exemption intended by Congress. 

The Department has appropriately modified the original rule to 

provide that fees received not only by an investment adviser but also by any 

affiliate of the adviser or for the benefit of the adviser are included within 

the scope of the fee-leveling requirement. The new rule also appropriately 

strengthens requirements for investment advice arrangements that use 

computer models and, in particular, by providing that and arrangement is 

an eligible investment advice arrangement “if the only investment advice 

provided under the arrangement is advice . . . generated by a computer 

model” that complies with the other applicable provisions of the regulation. 

 Workers have suffered greatly from the abuses that caused the 

economic meltdown and the continuing string of financial scandals that 

pre-date the meltdown, post-date the meltdown and continue to threaten 

their hard-won retirement savings. We applaud the Department for 

promulgating a rule that puts the interests of workers and their families 

first. No rule is too costly or too difficult of compliance if it is necessary to 

protect resources that have been put aside to guarantee a dignified 

retirement after a life of hard work. 

CONCLUSION 

For these reasons, we support the proposed rule. 

 Respectfully submitted, 

 CHANGE TO WIN 

 Patrick J. Szymanski 

General Counsel 

1900 L Street, NW, Suite 900 

Washington, D.C. 20036 

202.721.6035 

patrick.szymanski@changetowin.org

DATED: May 5, 2010