Monday, April 19, 2010

The SEC's Revolving Door

"Steven Richards left the SEC in July 2008 as a top accountant in the enforcement division to join the global business advisory firm FTI Consulting. Five days later, he signed on to represent a client involved in a 'nonpublic investigation' by his old division. ... The two ex-SEC men were among 66 former SEC employees who filed 168 letters with the SEC secretary in the first nine months of 2009 disclosing clients or new employers they planned to represent before the agency, according to documents obtained through a public-records request. ... John. P. Freeman, a former SEC lawyer and professor of professional and business ethics at the University of South Carolina School of Law, has done his own research that documented that a relatively high proportion of SEC employees go on to work for the industries they once policed. ... Others argue that employees of every government agency leave for the private sector and that the rules in place guard against conflicts of interest. ... Martin Dunn, a former deputy director of the division of corporation finance, left the agency in August 2007 after 19 years to join the law firm O'Melveny & Myers. ... In an interview, Mr. Dunn said he understands the interest in the revolving door, but said he and the SEC both take the issues seriously. 'Everybody I know cares intensely about following the ethics rules,' he said", Tom McGinty at the WSJ, 5 April 2010, link:

I'm sure Dunn speaks the truth. Everyone follows the rules if they lack substance. I again cite Graffam v, Burgess, my 24 October 2007 post: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2007/10/call-out-cops.html.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This should be engraved on the entrance of the SEC...

"Indeed, the greater the fraud intended the more particular the parties to it often are to proceed according to the strictest forms of law." Graffam v, Burgess, 117 US 180, 186 (1886)