Broadened Scope of ERISA Fiduciary Rules After several years of debate and revision, a Department of Labor (DOL) regulation, revising the definition of a “fiduciary” as it applied to investment managers, became applicable on June 9, 2017. The new regulation expands the definition of “fiduciary” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, to …
ERISA and Hedge Funds
What is ERISA? ERISA is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which governs, among other things, the investment of certain benefit plans into hedge funds. The significance of ERISA for hedge funds is that if more than 25% of a hedge fund’s equity interests are those of certain “benefit plan investors,” all of the hedge fund’s assets will be considered “plan assets” under …