Fiduciary duties with respect to pension plan investments

Section 404(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1104(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following: (3) (A) In the case of a pension plan that provides for individual accounts and permits a participant or beneficiary to exercise control over the assets in the participant’s or beneficiary’s account, nothing in paragraph (1)— (i) requires a fiduciary to select, or prohibits a fiduciary from selecting, any particular type of investment alternative, provided that a fiduciary provides the participant or beneficiary an opportunity to choose, from a broad range of investment alternatives, the manner in which some or all of the assets of the participant’s or beneficiary’s account are invested, according to regulations prescribed by the Secretary; or (ii) requires that any particular type of investment be either favored or disfavored, other than on the basis of the investment’s risk-return characteristics, in the context of the plan fiduciary’s objective of providing investment alternatives suitable for providing benefits for participants and beneficiaries. (B) In the event that a fiduciary selects a self-directed brokerage window as an investment alternative for a plan described in subparagraph (A)— (i) the Secretary shall not issue any regulations or subregulatory guidance constraining or prohibiting the range or type of investments that may be offered through such brokerage window; (ii) subsection (c) shall apply to such self-directed brokerage window; and (iii) the diversification requirement of paragraph (1)(C) and the prudence requirement of paragraph (1)(B) are not violated by the fiduciary’s selection of a self-directed brokerage window as an investment alternative or as a result of the exercise of a participant or beneficiary’s control over the assets in such self-directed brokerage window..