Jay Clayton’s performance in the SEC confirmation hearing makes it abundantly clear that after a career of helping Wall Street banks avoid accountability, he is uniquely ill-suited to the job of protecting investors and working people from Wall Street misconduct.
“Financial services companies that support giving retirement investors investment advice that is in their best interests should stand up against the aggressive anti-investor lobbying tactics of their trade associations seeking to overturn the Department of Labor’s (DOL) conflict of interest rule, according to three national organizations that have supported DOL efforts to strengthen protections for retirement savers.”
“This legislation is transparently an effort to paralyze the SEC and to empower Wall Street lawyers to overturn its decisions, not to improve its analysis or decision making. …The most prominent new requirement would mandate that the SEC identify every “available alternative” to a proposed regulation or agency action and quantitatively measure the costs and benefits of each such alternative prior to taking action. …In addition to the enormous task of identifying and analyzing every available alternative to a course of action, the agency would be required to perform half a dozen new analyses in addition to its current requirements concerning market efficiency, competition, and capital formation. These new requirements include analyses of effects on small business, market liquidity, state and local government, investor choice, and “market participants”. Notably, no new requirements concerning the protection of investors or preventing another financial crash are included. …We urge you to reject it.”
In the new political environment, it is likely that there will be a heavy emphasis on the capital formation mission of the SEC. The IAC should play a critical role in reminding the Commission that investor protection is crucial to stable and effective capital formation. …Improving financial entity disclosures is crucial if we are to improve market discipline for large financial entities and investor discipline for funds.
AFR joined with the AFL-CIO in calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise its proposed rule so that “any changes to the Commission’s disclosure rules do not narrow the scope of information that is provided to investors.”
“A Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to place caps on registered investment firms’ exposures to derivatives is showing the hallmarks of a classic Washington battle — the industry is trying to tamp down advocacy groups’ requests for broad regulations. Although the SEC hasn’t announced its plans, lobbyists who have been watching the derivatives rule expect the agency to move forward in the coming months. Watchdog groups like Better Markets and Americans for Financial Reform have championed the proposal…”
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.”