AFR wrote to the SEC to urge them to vigorously investigate what appear to be ongoing, widespread violations of securities law by private equity advisers.
Chicago leaders and national organizations joined together to deliver a petition in which over 80,000 Americans asked the SEC to investigate the toxic swap deals squeezing cities and states across the country.
“It is disappointing that the Commission has not already taken such steps. But a call from the people and the State of Illinois could and should spur the SEC to action to recover for the public big-bank gains that resulted from violations of their obligations to do business in a fair and transparent way with these public-sector clients. “
“AFR once again calls on regulators to reconsider and end their sweeping regulatory exemptions for international derivatives operations of U.S. banks and to provide greater transparency to the public concerning the size and potential impact of such exemptions.”
“Runaway pay, repeated studies have shown, inhibits teamwork, reduces employee morale and productivity, and encourages executives to make dangerous short-term bets. The SEC heard from hundreds of thousands of people about this rulemaking; the messages and comments were overwhelmingly positive, and rightly so.”
Marcus Stanley, policy director for Americans for Financial Reform… questioned the SEC’s proposal [for a derivatives exemption]. “We have lots of doubts and questions here about the direction they’re going,” Stanley said. “If they’re going to permit foreign subsidiaries of U.S. banks to sidestep the clearing and exchange trading requirements even for transactions conducted in the U.S., that’s a problem.”
“We are concerned that the Securities and Exchange Commission — which has always prided itself on serving as ‘the investors’ advocate’ — appears in recent years to have strayed from its primary focus on its investor protection mission,” the letter stated. “Given the vital role that average investors play in our markets and the overall economy, and the serious shortcomings that exist in the regulatory protections they receive, it is time in our view for these issues to be prioritized.”
AFR and five other consumer advocacy organizations, sent a letter to SEC Chair Mary Jo White detailing key investor protections that the SEC has failed to take, and urging Chair White to act on them.
AFR and 9 other organizations sent a letter to Chair Mary Jo White expressing concern over the exclusion of Professor Joseph Stiglitz from the SEC Market Structure Advisory Committee. The letter urges the SEC to reconsider, or to provide more detail regarding how it arrived to its decision.
Supporters of a rule that would require public companies to disclose the ratio between executive and median employee pay say the Securities and Exchange Commission should move soon to enact the regulation. “It’s one of the simplest, most straightforward Dodd-Frank rules,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform.