If You Buy Pension Risk Transfers, Don’t Buy a Pig in a Poke

Congress, last year, directed the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (the “Department”) to review its position on fiduciary responsibilities connected to pension risk transfers under the SECURE 2.0 Act—Division T of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023—at Section 321. Last month, the Department issued a “Consultation Paper on Interpretive Bulletin 95-1” as part of its discussions with the ERISA Advisory Council (and the public) regarding those responsibilities. According to the Department, last year, pension risk transfer purchases reached an all-time high with nearly $52 billion in transactions, owing to recent market conditions favorably impacting the affordability ...