) and were designated as effective on January 15, 2021. However, given the new Administration, the future of that final rule is unclear. As part of the DOL’s one-two punch to plan fiduciaries’ obligations regarding investment selection and management, the agency quickly finalized its proposed regulation on exercising shareholder rights. (See our other blogs here regarding the DOL regulations on ESG investing.) The DOL recognizes that the “fiduciary act of managing plan assets includes the management of voting rights (as well as other shareholder rights) appurtenant to shares of stock.” As we noted in our prior post, the DOL’s view on fiduciaries conducting proxy voting ties the obligation to their concern that voting proxies may relate to non-pecuniary interests. In that case, the DOL’s position in the proposed rule was that plan fiduciaries should actually refrain from voting the proxy.