It depends on how well established the market price is. If I sell you a $300k house for $150k, I've given you $150k of value. I'm either incompetent or purposefully gifting you $150k. There's a price that should be charged based on similar houses.
If I do that on behalf of a company by selling THEIR house, I'm either incompetent or embezzling money. If it turns out I sold it to a friend, it's clear I was embezzling. If I don't know the person (i.e. "arms length") I'm just incompetent.
In this case there is a market price for advisory services that you can figure out by looking at all the other similar advisers out there. You could make the argument that there are not enough similar advisers to establish what the price "should" be, or that it's not sufficiently below them to establish how much of a discount there is.
But mainly no one cares to go after the 401(k) balances of millions of middle class Americans on a technicality, so it's a non-starter.
If I do that on behalf of a company by selling THEIR house, I'm either incompetent or embezzling money. If it turns out I sold it to a friend, it's clear I was embezzling. If I don't know the person (i.e. "arms length") I'm just incompetent.
In this case there is a market price for advisory services that you can figure out by looking at all the other similar advisers out there. You could make the argument that there are not enough similar advisers to establish what the price "should" be, or that it's not sufficiently below them to establish how much of a discount there is.
But mainly no one cares to go after the 401(k) balances of millions of middle class Americans on a technicality, so it's a non-starter.