S.E.C. Chief Pursues Tougher Enforcement

S.E.C. Chief Pursues Tougher Enforcement - 2/23/2009

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HEADLINES \| SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS \| COURT FILINGS LINKS TO OTHER NEWS \| NEWS ARCHIVE	HEADLINES ARCHIVED SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS ARCHIVED

HEADLINE NEWS:

S.E.C. Chief Pursues Tougher Enforcement
Stephen Labaton

The New York Times. February 23, 2009
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EXCERPT: Less than a month after becoming the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary L. Schapiro is moving swiftly to reverse major decisions by her predecessor and to strengthen an enforcement program that missed several major frauds that cost investors billions of dollars. Ms. Schapiro and her aides have begun consulting officials at intelligence and law enforcement agencies about the technology they use to sort through mounds of information. Her hope is to borrow techniques that could help the commission sift through hundreds of thousands of tips it receives annually from informants. Last year, the agency received more than 700,000 such tips. In one of her first decisions, Ms. Schapiro reversed a policy of her predecessor, Christopher Cox, that had required enforcement lawyers to obtain the consent of commissioners before moving to resolve major cases. With the commission dominated by opponents of government regulation, this had the effect of discouraging cases and reducing penalties. “This agency did not pursue some critical issues and problems,” she said in a brief interview last week. “We need to be transparent about what we missed. We need to learn from these tragedies.” The effort to reshape the commission could not be more timely for an agency whose political future is at risk. Congress is preparing to consider legislation this year to overhaul the regulatory structure, a process that threatens to strip the commission of its authority if it does not show progress in restoring its credibility. Ms. Schapiro, who served as an S.E.C. commissioner previously, has returned to a beleaguered agency thoroughly at odds with the one she had left 15 years earlier.

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