At this time of the year, when Santa Claus is making his list of who has been naughty and nice, optimists rub their hands in glee, anticipating a stocking full of goodies. Pessimistic believers resign themselves to something worse. In pension land, if you embrace fiduciary change, the incoming head of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee may be about to hand you the proverbial lump of coal.

According to Washington Bureau Chief Melanie Waddell, Senator Orrin Hatch intends to push anew for the passage of his Secure Annuities for Employee Retirement or "SAFE" Act. He spoke about pension reform and the "pension debt crisis" on July 9, 2013 in his "Introduction of the SAFE Retirement Act of 2013."  His objective is to "stop the Department of Labor from writing fiduciary rules for individual retirement accounts" and "over-regulating IRA investment advice." See "Sen. Hatch's 2015 Priority: Torpedo DOL Fiduciary Efforts" (Investment Advisor Magazine, December 15, 2014).

Put forward as a Conflict of Interest Rule-Investment Advice, the U.S. Department of Labor seeks to "reduce harmful conflicts of interest by amending the regulatory definition of the term 'fiduciary' set forth at 29 CFR 2510.3-21(c) to more broadly define as fiduciaries those persons who render investment advice to plans and IRAs for a fee within the meaning of section 3(21) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and section 4975(e)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The amendment would take into account current practices of investment advisers, and the expectations of plan officials and participants, and IRA owners who receive investment advice, as well as changes that have occurred in the investment marketplace, and in the ways advisers are compensated that frequently subject advisers to harmful conflicts of interest."

As with any mandate, if approved, some will be impacted more than others. In its "DOL 2014 Fall Regulatory Agenda," ERISA attorneys Fred Reish, Bruce Ashton and their Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP colleagues assert that broker-dealers and their registered representatives will likely bear the brunt of new rules. They write that "Adoption of an expanded definition will likely affect both the status for broker-dealers as fiduciaries and their compensation (due to the fiduciary prohibited transaction rules of ERISA). In response, these broker-dealers may need to develop RIA fiduciary programs for advisors who focus on retirement plans and decide how to manage the plan business of those who do not."

Whatever your holiday preference may be, keep a look out for the "gifts" that 2015 has in store for plan sponsors and their service providers.