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- May It Please The Court: THE EBSA’s Legally Unsupported, Unfounded, and Bootstrapped Policies Create a Systemic Threat to Plan Participants and Plan Sponsors Alike and Must Be Rejected
- A Call for Senate Oversight Hearings: The Systemic Risk to Plan Sponsors and Plan Participants Created by the EBSA’s Expansive and Legally Unsupported Extrapolations of ERISA Fiduciary Principles
- DOL/EBSA Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 Is Not Entitled to Judicial Deference Under The Loper Bright Decision
- Fatally Flawed: Why DOL Administrative Bulletin 2026-01 Will Not, and Should Not, Withstand Judicial Scrutiny
- Terminal Wealth: The True Fiduciary Prudence Paradigm with Regard to the In-Plan Annuity Scam
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Category Archives: fiduciary compliance
May It Please The Court: THE EBSA’s Legally Unsupported, Unfounded, and Bootstrapped Policies Create a Systemic Threat to Plan Participants and Plan Sponsors Alike and Must Be Rejected
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC The issue before this Court is not whether procedural prudence matters under ERISA. It unquestionably does. The issue is whether the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) may lawfully transform procedural prudence … Continue reading
Posted in fiduciary compliance
Tagged compliance, ERISA, fiduciary, fiduciary investing, fiduciary law, Fiduciary litigation
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A Call for Senate Oversight Hearings: The Systemic Risk to Plan Sponsors and Plan Participants Created by the EBSA’s Expansive and Legally Unsupported Extrapolations of ERISA Fiduciary Principles
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) may not transform generally accepted fiduciary concepts into categorical legal mandates untethered from statutory text, judicial precedent, or established trust-law principles. This appeal presents a fundamental … Continue reading
DOL/EBSA Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 Is Not Entitled to Judicial Deference Under The Loper Bright Decision
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC In DOL/EBSA Field Assitance Bulletin 2026-01 (FAB 2026-01), the Department of Labor states its belief that its proposed legislation is entitled to legal deference. Nothing could be further from the truth. … Continue reading
Fatally Flawed: Why DOL Administrative Bulletin 2026-01 Will Not, and Should Not, Withstand Judicial Scrutiny
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DOL Bulletin 2026-01 Continue reading
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Tagged 401k, compliance, Congresss, fiduciary law, fiduciary liability
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Terminal Wealth: The True Fiduciary Prudence Paradigm with Regard to the In-Plan Annuity Scam
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC A sound evaluation of fiduciary prudence must ultimately be anchored in outcomes, not just process—and in the context of long-term financial decision-making, the most meaningful outcome is terminal wealth. Fiduciaries are … Continue reading
Is the DOL/EBSA Trying to Serve Two Masters? ERISA Section 404(a)’s Independent Investigation and Evaluation Requirements and the DOL/EBSA Proposed Rule on Alternative Investments
Is the DOL and EBSA trying to Serve Two Masters? The DOL’s proposed rule for alyternative investments suggests the answer is “yes,” given the known lack of transparency associaes with such products. Worse yet, it has been suggested that alternative … Continue reading
Posted in fiduciary compliance
Tagged 401k, ERISA, fiduciary law, fiduciary liability, fiduciarylitigation, plansponsor, retirement plans
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Much Ado About Nothing?: The DOL’s New Alternative Investment Rule vs. the Administrative Procedure Act
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC When the DOL announced the relases of its new alternative investments rule, we quickly advised out fiduciary risk minimization clients to simply ignore it, as it failed our basic two-step fiduciary … Continue reading
Posted in fiduciary compliance
Tagged 401k, EBSA, ERISA, ERISA litigation Congress, fiduciary law, history, news, plan sponsors, retirement plans, Supreme Court
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Reasserting ERISA’s Private Enforcement Design: A Rebuttal to EBSA’s “Frivolous Litigation” Narrative
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC I. Introduction Recent statements by the EBSA leadership and Assistant DOL Secretary, Daniel Aronowitz, frame ERISA litigation as abusive,” “frivolous,” and in need of increased structural restrictions. Aronowitz has called for … Continue reading
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When Income Is Not Enough: Why the Continued Inclusion of In-Plan Annuities May Breach ERISA Duties When Compared to Capital-Preserving Income Alternatives and Strategies
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC This post provides a fiduciary prudence analysis comparing a $100,000 non-SPIA immediate annuity paying 7% annually to a rolling / laddered 10-year U.S. Treasury note strategy yielding 4%, evaluated through terminal … Continue reading
The Active Management Value Ratio as a Cost-Benefit Framework: Integrating AI into Fiduciary Prudence Analysis
James W. Watkins, III, J.D., CFP EmeritusTM, AWMA®InvestSense, LLC I. Executive SummarySeveral years ago, I created a simple metric, the Active Management Value Ratio™ (AMVR). Since studies have shown that people are more visually oriented than verbally oriented, the AMVR … Continue reading
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