Courtesy of Pam Martens.
President Obama Nominates Mary Jo White for Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Last Thursday, Mary Jo White, the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission since April, spoke at Fordham Law School on “The Importance of Independence” at the SEC. This is akin to Jamie Dimon speaking at the American Bankers Association on the importance of safety and soundness of insured deposits at the Nation’s banks.
The audience sensed an agenda: that White was trying to publicly humiliate Judge Jed Rakoff like a schoolboy getting lectured by the teacher in front of the class. Rakoff is the Judge who is challenging the SEC’s perpetual no-admit-or-deny settlements with Wall Street firms. The Wall Street Journal reported that White looked right at Rakoff who was sitting in the room during her lecture.
White came to the SEC from Debevoise and Plimpton, a key Wall Street law firm, where she represented some of Wall Street’s biggest names. Her husband, John W. White, is a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP which represents the same Wall Street firms and more. Under SEC rules, the conflicts of interest of the spouse are also Mary Jo White’s conflicts.
In her talk at Fordham, White said: “When I urge the courts to defer to the SEC’s independence and expertise, I am really only making the point that separation of powers requires each of us to respect and stay in our respective lanes.”
“We recognize that, under the law,” said White, “a court can review a settlement. But a court that reviews a settlement that a law enforcement agency like ours enters with a defendant has a more limited task. It is unlike a court’s wide-ranging inquiry into the merits of a class-action settlement, for example. A court reviewing a consent judgment in one of our cases has a narrower focus – making sure that the settlement is not ambiguous and that it does not affirmatively harm third parties or impose an undue burden on the court’s own resources. But, the core decision as to whether to seek admissions is a decision for the Commission to make in its best, independent judgment of what should be required.”
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