The Department of Labor has withdrawn the controversial "Q&A-30" in Field Assistance Bulletin 2012-02, which would have required some investment-specific disclosures regarding fees and expenses in 401(k) plans that offered only a brokerage window, self-directed brokerage account, or similar arrangement and did not designate any specific investment options beyond the brokerage platform. In an amended bulletin (Field Assistance Bulletin 2012-02R), the DOL replaced Q&A-30 with a new Q&A-39 that does not require any investment-specific disclosures in brokerage-window-only plans, but does contain strong language warning plan fiduciaries that merely offering a brokerage window to participants may not be fully consistent with the general fiduciary obligations imposed by ERISA.

As brief background, the DOL's participant-level fee-disclosure regulation (which goes into effect this year) requires specific annual and quarterly disclosures to participants in most participant-directed 401(k) and other individual-account plans regarding plan-level and investment-level fees and expenses. (The initial disclosures are due by August 30, 2012, for calendar-year plans.) The investment-level information applies only to investments that are "designated investment alternatives." A brokerage window is not a designated investment alternative. So the regulation generally has been read to mean that no investment-level disclosures are required in a plan that does not have any designated investment alternatives but rather offers participants a brokerage window or self-directed brokerage account through which investments may be made in a large number of publicly available investment securities.

Q&A-30 went beyond that by nonetheless requiring investment-level disclosures in brokerage-window-only plans with respect to investment options that were either designated as part of the "broad range" of investment options available to participants or had a threshold number of participants investing in them. This led to broad criticism - notably from Senator John Kerry (likely at the urging of his home-state "constituent," Fidelity Investments) - both because it required disclosures that were previously not thought to be required and because it effectively added new rules without going through the appropriate rule-making channels. 

All this ruckus notwithstanding, the bulk of the participant-level fee-disclosure rules remain in effect, and the compliance deadline is fast-approaching. Plan administrators should be making concerted efforts now to ensure they will be ready.