WASHINGTON, D.C.—Dennis M. Kelleher, Co-founder, President, and CEO, issued the following statement after the Senate confirmed Paul Atkins to be Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

“As the U.S. financial markets experience extreme stress and volatility due to erratic policy announcements by the President, the American people need an independent SEC Chair who will be vigilant in supervising and policing those markets to protect investors and prevent crashes. Unfortunately, the newly confirmed SEC Chair Paul Atkins will likely do the opposite and at the worst possible time.

“Atkins can be expected to take orders from the White House, politicize the SEC, mindlessly cut key staff, deregulate the industry, gut the enforcement professionals, side with management over investors, and generally undermine the mission and mandate of the SEC. As happened when he was an SEC Commissioner from 2002-2008, Wall Street’s megafirms and politically favored companies will be protected while investors will be left to protect themselves.

“After the President nominated Atkins to be Chair of the SEC, we identified ten reasons investors and the public should be very concerned. Those concerns ranged from Atkins’s longstanding history of opposing virtually all financial protection rules to the poor judgment he showed as an SEC Commissioner before the 2008 financial crisis and his conflicts of interest from his last 15 years representing financial firms with business before the SEC. Unfortunately, the confirmation process highlighted the merits of these concerns.

“During his confirmation hearing, Atkins insisted that eliminating financial protection rules was not to blame for the 2008 crash that left 90% of Americans poorer in 2016 than they were in 2007. On key issues like his vote as an SEC Commissioner to allow Wall Street banks to reduce their average capital by 40%, Atkins said he was not wrong and even blamed the SEC’s staff rather than taking responsibility. Additionally, Atkins did nothing to dispel concerns about the many conflicts of interest arising from his last 15 years promoting the interests of financial firms the SEC regulates.

“Nonetheless, we hope that Atkins rises to the occasion and embraces the storied and critical mission of the SEC to protect investors, markets, and our economy without fear or favor. He certainly has the brains and experience to do so if he chooses to do so. This is a perilous time. The stakes could not be higher. If the SEC does not do its job, investors will suffer massive losses, their confidence and trust will evaporate, securities will be mispriced, capital will be misallocated, capital formation will plummet, the U.S. markets will lose their preeminence, financial crises and bailouts will ensue, the economy will suffer, and Main Street Americans will have to endure more years of needless economic pain.

“As Diana Henriques’ new book about the SEC, Taming the Street, proves, history will be watching and judging whether Atkins rises to the occasion, and avoids repeating the mistakes of the past as evidenced by the catastrophic 2008 crash.”

Here is our fact sheet on Atkins’s record.