DOL Stance on Cryptocurrency in 401(k) Plans Becomes a Political Football | JD Supra

A latest launch by the DOL elevating considerations about plan sponsors permitting cryptocurrency investments in 401(ok) plans has gotten the eye of either side of the Congressional aisle in addition to business teams.  A number of the reactions to the discharge have sought to persuade the DOL to take a step again, however the DOL has indicated on a number of events that it has no intention of doing so.     

On March 10, 2022, the DOL issued Compliance Help Launch No. 2022-21 (the “Launch”), which laid out the DOL’s skepticism on the prudence of cryptocurrency investments in 401(ok) plans, together with via brokerage home windows that let individuals to position 401(ok) belongings in investments apart from these included within the plan’s core menu affirmatively chosen by plan fiduciaries.

The Launch units forth the next 5 considerations the DOL has relating to dangers related to such investments in 401(ok) plans:

• Cryptocurrency is extremely speculative and topic to excessive worth volatility;
• Problem for individuals in precisely evaluating the funding and making knowledgeable funding choices;
• Lack of available belongings held in belief for fee of advantages since cryptocurrency exists as traces of laptop code in a digital pockets, which can make it extra weak to theft and loss;
• Uncertainty surrounding the reliability and accuracy of cryptocurrency valuations; and
• The continually-evolving regulatory framework.

The Launch goes on to state that the DOL expects to start a program to analyze plan sponsors that let cryptocurrency investments in 401(ok) plans and to query plan fiduciaries as to how they have been capable of reconcile the choice to allow such investments with their duties of prudence and loyalty underneath ERISA.  Violations of those duties expose plan fiduciaries to private legal responsibility with respect to related funding losses.

Business and Congressional Response
In April, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce despatched a letter to Ali Khawar, the appearing assistant secretary of the Worker Advantages Safety Administration, the section of the DOL that oversees worker profit plans, stating that the DOL ought to search to have interaction business members to assemble extra information and collaborate on attainable options to cryptocurrency investments, somewhat than the DOL taking unilateral motion.  Mr. Khawar indicated in a subsequent interview with Law360 that the DOL has no intention of revoking its latest steerage relating to cryptocurrency investments in 401(ok) plans. 

In Congress, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) despatched a letter to the DOL on March 29, 2022, additionally criticizing the Launch.  In an April 20, 2022 response to the Senator’s letter, Mr. Khawar reiterated the important thing factors of the Launch and supplied no indication that the DOL wouldn’t stand behind it.  Shortly after Mr. Khawar’s response, Senator Tuberville launched the Monetary Freedom Act of 2022 (S. 1447), which, if handed in its present type, would, amongst different issues, (i) present that plan fiduciaries don’t breach the ERISA obligation of prudence by deciding on a brokerage window or on account of participant funding alternatives via that brokerage window, (ii) make obtainable to fiduciaries ERISA part 404(c) protections with respect to brokerage home windows (part 404(c) usually gives that fiduciaries will not be answerable for funding losses if individuals choose investments from a menu made obtainable by the fiduciaries), and (iii) bar the DOL from issuing rules or different steerage limiting the kinds of investments obtainable via a 401(ok) plan brokerage window.

On the opposite aspect of the Congressional aisle, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tina Smith (D-MN) despatched a letter in early Could to at least one retirement plan supplier that not too long ago introduced that it’ll start providing Bitcoin as an funding choice that 401(ok) plan fiduciaries might select to incorporate as a part of the core menu of plan funding choices.  The letter questioned the appropriateness of the announcement in gentle of the Launch and listed questions for the supplier’s response to the Senators.  The letter follows Mr Khawar stating in an interview with The Wall Road Journal that the DOL has “grave considerations” relating to the supplier’s announcement. 

Whereas the panorama of cryptocurrency investments in 401(ok) plans might change sooner or later, the Launch stays excellent and the DOL has given each indication that it intends to observe via with the actions specified by it.  Provided that, plan fiduciaries that let cryptocurrency investments of their plans, whether or not as a part of the core funding menu or via a brokerage window, ought to think about, at a minimal, how they might tackle every of the 5 areas of concern the DOL raises within the Launch.