S.E.C. Chief Pursues Tougher Enforcement

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — 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.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/business/23schapiro.html?th&emc=th

[SlowDownFast]

1. A little late for that now.

And, no, not "better late than never".

Just plain too late.

“This agency did not pursue some critical issues and problems,”

SOME?

FUBAR.

[groovedaddy]

3. Yep. Alot of the damage is already done. Still, something had to done. n.t

[HowHasItComeToThis]

2. RE-INSTATE THE UP-TICK RULE

[Best_man23]

4. AMEN

This action, along with zero-tolerance enforcement of the naked short selling rule (which was never repealed but was completely unenforced under Cox) would do more to stop the short selling and bear raids than any other moves.

They also need to get rid of the double- and triple-leveraged ETFs.

[SlowDownFast]

6. Ridiculous #2. n/t

[SlowDownFast]

5. Ridiculous. n/t