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Trump Picks Paul Atkins to Lead SEC

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Bloomberg Dec 5 13:07 · 35.4k Views

Nicola White, Bloomberg News speaks with Romaine Bostick and Scarlet Fu about Trump picking Paul Atkins to lead SEC and what changes she is expecting.

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Transcript

  • 00:00 What do we expect from the SEC under Paul Atkins, assuming that he is confirmed?
  • 00:05 We are expecting major changes.
  • 00:08 Paul Atkins is well known here in DC
  • 00:11 in financial regulatory circles.
  • 00:13 He's a long time public servant and also he's in the private sector
  • 00:17 and he has advocated throughout his career for a lighter touch on regulation.
  • 00:21 So we're expecting if not a rollback
  • 00:24 on certain Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, then
  • 00:28 at minimum a slow down on future rule making.
  • 00:31 And of course, there are a lot of people trying to already draw a contrast between
  • 00:35 what an Atkins SEC looks like relative to a Gary Gensler SEC Obviously not a fan favorite among a lot of folks on Wall Street, particularly when it comes to some of those alternative asset classes.
  • 00:46 You have a sense here that given Atkins background, Nicola,
  • 00:49 that we are looking at a situation that will be more market friendly and more importantly
  • 00:54 that he will actually have the support of the market in turn.
  • 00:58 Yeah, we're expecting.
  • 00:59 I mean, you have to contrast
  • 01:02 Paul Atkins with outgoing SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who ruled out one of the most ambitious
  • 01:08 SEC rulemaking agendas in
  • 01:11 probably the history of the modern history of the agency.
  • 01:14 Gensler was sort of known in some circles, as, you know, cracking down on everything.
  • 01:20 And we're expecting that to be a sea change under Atkins.
  • 01:24 For starters, We're definitely expecting a friendlier touch on crypto.
  • 01:29 The crypto industry has long decried Gensler's leadership in this asset class.
  • 01:37 The long time kind of the the criticism that has been lobbed at Gensler and the agency
  • 01:42 is that the agency has LED
  • 01:44 with
  • 01:45 regulation via enforcement as opposed to laying out clear rules of the road for this emerging industry.
  • 01:53 So Nicola, one thing that we should point out about
  • 01:57 Atkins is that he served as an SEC commissioner
  • 02:00 back in 2002 to 2008.
  • 02:02 So he has a track record here that we can refer to.
  • 02:06 What did
  • 02:07 that experience?
  • 02:08 How did that shape his reputation?
  • 02:10 What kind of reputation does he have
  • 02:12 on Capitol Hill
  • 02:13 in the financial markets?
  • 02:15 He has so exactly right.
  • 02:17 He has his his record is very, very clear because he was a public servant for quite some time.
  • 02:22 And so he has.
  • 02:24 And then after he left the SEC, he was in the private sector.
  • 02:27 He's testified numerous times in front of Congress.
  • 02:30 He's been,
  • 02:31 you know, he's written op Eds, he's been on TV, he's been on podcasts.
  • 02:35 We know what he believes in
  • 02:37 and throughout his tenure,
  • 02:40 throughout his career, he has advocated for a lighter touch on regulation.
  • 02:43 One of his big things that he has talked about over the years is,
  • 02:49 you know, he doesn't, he is not a fan
  • 02:51 of, of record-breaking fines on companies for alleged wrongdoing.
  • 02:55 He has said this punishes the individuals and the shareholders that invest in these companies.
  • 03:01 So
  • 03:02 under Gensler's tenure, we saw some really, really big fines for companies.
  • 03:07 Think of all the frauds that we've had in recent years and the accompanying fines have matched the size of those frauds.
  • 03:14 So we're expecting to see a rollback in some of those fines going forward for,
  • 03:20 for for these kinds of says.