The Supreme Court ruled Friday in Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce et al. that the so-called Chevron Doctrine would no longer apply to cases involving rulemakings of the federal bureaucracy, heralding what could be widespread changes to how trillions of dollars in qualified retirement plans are regulated and managed.
The Chevron Doctrine, established in the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc., required federal courts to be deferential to federal agencies’ interpretations of unclear statutes. Based on Loper Bright, courts are now required to “exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”
The…
