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An Obama-era retirement-savings rule is in limbo, but investors already are pouring their retirement savings into brokerages’ promise of conflict-free financial advice in exchange for a fee, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bank of America Corp.’s global wealth unit, which includes the “thundering herd” brokerage force of Merrill Lynch, gained a record $29.2 billion in new fee-based assets in the first quarter, the bank said yesterday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. said last week that $8 billion of new assets flowed into long-term products, including those that charge a recurring fee. Also yesterday, private-equity firms Stone Point Capital LLC and KKR & Co. agreed to acquire a majority stake in Focus Financial Partners, a New York-based investment firm that backs independent financial advisers who charge fees and pledge to minimize conflicts, in a $2 billion deal.

One of the first cases that Justice Neil Gorsuch will hear on Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court involves a procedural issue in securities class actions, an area of law that the new justice once criticized as a “free ride to fast riches” for the plaintiffs bar, the National Law Journal reported today. To be sure, Gorsuch’s views on securities class actions were expressed more than a decade ago while he was a lawyer in private practice representing both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Washington Legal Foundation. While on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, his class action rulings have been largely textualist, not ideological. Still, California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. ANZ Securities will give the securities bar its first glimpse of how Justice Gorsuch approaches issues that are esoteric on the surface but can greatly impact litigation strategy. CalPERS is hoping to reverse a July 8 ruling by the Second Circuit that dismissed its securities fraud lawsuit against the underwriters of Lehman Bros.’ debt offerings. The question before the court deals not with a fast ride, but instead how slow it can be — specifically, whether the time period in which an investor who opts out of a class action can pursue fraud claims is suspended by the filing of the initial class action.

Many business owners and corporate executives have expressed unbridled optimism that President Trump can fuel economic growth and increase their profits, the New York Times reported today. Some of the nation’s top bankers said yesterday that businesses were feeling less certain that Trump can pull off his ambitious agenda to deregulate and cut taxes. Many industries, the bank executives said, are increasingly cautious about taking on too much new debt, particularly after efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act failed last month, raising doubts about whether the president can get pro-business measures like tax cuts through Congress. And such political uncertainty comes at a time when the Federal Reserve has embarked on raising interest rates, which will make borrowing costlier.

British Prime Minister Theresa May today sent formal notice of the country’s intention to withdraw from the European Union, the New York Times reported today. Speaking in Parliament, May said that she was invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, putting Britain on track to leave the European Union in 2019 and raising a host of thorny issues involved in untangling a four-decade relationship. In addition to a welter of trade and customs matters, the Conservative government faces the prospect of a new independence referendum in Scotland, where a majority voted to remain in the European Union, and deep worries about the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland. “Today the government acted on the democratic will of the British people, and it acts too on the clear and convincing position of this house,” May told Parliament. “The Article 50 process is now underway, and, in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.”

The Supreme Court yesterday granted certiorari in U.S. Bank NA v. The Village at Lakeridge LLC, but the high court will not review the more important question for chapter 11 practice, according to a special analysis from ABI Editor-at-Large Bill Rochelle. The justices will not decide whether the purchaser of a claim automatically takes on the seller’s insider status, perhaps because the justices perceive no conflict among the circuits. Rather, the court will decide whether the standard of review for non-statutory insider status is de novo or clearly erroneous, or a combination of both. Curiously, the Acting Solicitor General recommended denial of certiorari, believing that in reality there are no circuit splits and that the Ninth Circuit made the correct holdings. To the contrary, the petitioner contends that the Third, Seventh and Tenth Circuits employ the de novo standard while the Ninth Circuit “for the first time” employed the clearly erroneous standard.

A well-known money manager is shutting down his firm after a year of disappointing results — the latest sign of turmoil in the $3 trillion hedge fund industry, the New York Times reported today. Eric Mindich was once a Wall Street wunderkind, becoming the youngest ever partner at Goldman Sachs more than 20 years ago. He launched Eton Park Capital Management in 2004, expanding it to manage as much as $14 billion. In a letter to investors yesterday, Mindich said a mix of challenging market conditions and Eton Park’s poor performance had led to the decision. The firm’s assets under management have fallen by half since 2011.

A new fiscal plan that leaves the Puerto Rico with less money to cover its debts pushed the value of certain bonds down as much as 9 percent last week through Thursday, according to Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board data, the Wall Street Journal reported. The market value of that $14 billion has dropped to $8 billion as Puerto Rico’s financial condition worsened over time, according to the most recent information available from Morningstar. The lower value doesn’t necessarily equate to $6 billion in losses because the funds could have purchased the bonds at any time over the past several years as the value dropped. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello had initially proposed earmarking about $1.2 billion a year for debt repayment over the next decade. But the fiscal control board that Congress created to oversee a debt restructuring required him to revise his economic forecasts downward. That left about $800 million for annual debt service.

The U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday made it easier for bigger lenders to merge, by quadrupling its threshold of combined size that would require an extensive regulatory review of a proposed deal, Reuters reported. A merger that creates a bank with total assets of less than $100 billion is not a threat to the financial system, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday. Since 2012, that threshold had been $25 billion. Mergers that create banks "with less than $100 billion in total assets, are generally not likely to create institutions that pose systemic risks," the Federal Reserve said. Bank regulatory lawyers and financial dealmakers have argued that overly tight regulation since the 2008 financial crisis was hindering industry mergers and acquisitions. Under the Dodd-Frank financial reforms adopted to prevent another crisis, the Fed must consider the extent to which a bank merger would result in risks to the financial system.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and industry groups are urging a Texas federal judge to block an Obama-era retirement advice rule pending an appeal and as federal regulators consider halting implementation of the rule for 60 days, the National Law Journal reported today. U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn on Feb. 8 upheld the Labor Department’s so-called “fiduciary rule,” saying that Congress gave regulators “broad discretion” to confront conflicts of interest and to protect retirement investors. The U.S. Chamber and other plaintiffs, including the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Financial Services Institute, took their challenge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “Absent immediate relief, the fiduciary rule will bring about the most sweeping changes to the retirement savings system since the adoption of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) — even as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals examines whether the rule is lawful and the Department of Labor considers whether to revise or rescind it,” Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Eugene Scalia wrote in court papers. “The rule would require a wholesale reordering of the financial-services and insurance industries.” The fiduciary rule, which was six years in the making, is set to take effect in April. The Trump administration is weighing a 60-day delay, giving regulators and Congress to determine next steps. Business groups sued in courts across the country last year to stop the rule — but judges ruled for the Labor Department.