On April 7, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) released risk alerts for Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) and Form CRS and its related rules. The SEC Risk Alerts set forth OCIE’s expectations for firms’ compliance with Reg BI and Form CRS and provide broker-dealers with information about the scope and content of OCIE’s initial examinations following the compliance date of June 30.

On April 8, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) indicated that it will take the same approach as set forth in the SEC Risk Alerts when FINRA examines broker-dealers and their associated persons for compliance with Reg BI and Form CRS, while focusing primarily on assessing whether firms have made a good faith effort to establish and implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to comply with Reg BI and Form CRS.

The FINRA statement is available here.

The SEC Risk Alert regarding Reg BI is available here, and the SEC Risk Alert regarding Form CRS is available here.