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| 2001 News and Press Releases |
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HEADLINE ARCHIVED:
A Kinder, Gentler SEC
By: Maureen Milford
The National Law Journal. November 12, 2001
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Excerpt: LAWYERS WHO REPRESENT companies on securities law enforcement matters are taking heart from recent statements that signal a more civil and cooperative Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Meanwhile, they're advising clients not to et too complacent. The SEC took the extraordinary step on Oct. 23 of outlining the reasons it decided not to bring an enforcement action against Seaboard Corp. of Shawnee Mission, Kan. The pork processing and cargo shipping company issued misstatements in its annual and quarterly reports from December 1995 to March
2000 based on improper entries booked by a controller at its Miami-based Chestnut Hill Farms division. "This is the first time since the SEC was established in 1934 that it has publicly issued a list of factors relevant to its decision of whether or not to take enforcement action," said Paul V. Gerlach, the SEC's former associate director of enforcement and now a partner with Sidley Austin Brown & Wood in Washington, D.C. "To my way of thinking, this is very positive news for issuers out there trying to do the right thing. It gives a public precedent to argue to." … The day before the report was released, new SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt, in a speech to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Miami, said the SEC recently has been "saying what is on its institutional mind," in part to provide guidance to those who have to implement the complex and intricate securities laws. Pitt, who spent 23 years at New York's Fried, Frank, Harris, Schriver & Jacobson, was appointed in August.
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