Pension Trade Rules Get OMB Nod: Thrill-Free Update
Published Date: 3/28/2025
Notice
Summary
The Department of Labor is asking for public feedback on rules that let certain pension plans and big savings programs trade stocks between special funds using clear, automatic methods. This helps keep trading fair and transparent without extra government paperwork, but records must be kept and shared if asked. Comments are open until April 28, 2025, so anyone involved in these funds should weigh in to help shape the process.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 2 costs, 0 mixed.
Exemption allows pension-plan cross-trades
Prohibited Transaction Exemption (PTE) 2002-12 permits private-sector pension plans and the Federal Thrift Savings Plan to buy and sell securities between certain investment funds that participate in passive or model-driven “cross-trading” programs, as long as the trades follow the objective criteria in the exemption.
Recordkeeping and information-collection burden
Relying on the exemption requires third-party disclosures and recordkeeping; the exemption does not require filing with the Federal government but designated records must be made available to specified parties (including the Department of Labor and the IRS) upon request. The Department estimates 60 respondents, 840 total responses, 855 annual hours of burden, and $1,738 in annual other costs (OMB Control Number 1210-0115).
Exemption limited to index/model-driven programs
The exemption applies only to cross-trading conducted according to index- or model-driven programs that meet the exemption’s specific requirements, which generally seek to confine or eliminate the manager’s discretion to affect which securities, how many, or the timing of cross-trades.
Large accounts covered if restructuring or trading adviser
The exemption also covers cross-trades among eligible funds and certain large accounts that hire managers to carry out a portfolio restructuring to convert the large account into a fund, or to act as a “trading adviser” for such a restructuring program.
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