Dalia Blass, Senior Investment Management Partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, testified on August 6 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs at a full committee hearing titled “Empowering Main Street by Unlocking Access to Capital.” Testifying in her personal capacity, Dalia drew on her prior service as Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management.
Dalia highlighted the important role of the asset management industry in the U.S. economy and noted potential improvements. Her central message was that current rules and regulations undermine retail access to alternatives investments, and that thoughtful modernization would restore access while maintaining important investor protections. She discussed leveling the playing field between 401k and 403b plans and noted that only 4 percent of defined contribution plans offer exposure to alternative investments, compared to 70 percent of defined benefit plans.
Dalia praised the Department of Labor’s March 31, 2026 proposal creating an ERISA safe harbor for selecting alternatives in defined contribution plans, but urged fit-for-purpose fund structures to unlock the proposal’s full potential. She also supported the INVEST Act as a bipartisan capital-formation package, along with the Increasing Investor Opportunities Act and the Access to Small Business Investor Capital Act to modernize publicly traded closed-end funds and BDC fee disclosure, and called for removal of exchange-imposed annual meetings, revisions to 1940 Act’s quorum requirements, and reform of the SEC’s exemptive process to unlock market innovation.
Read Dalia’s written testimony.