[ad_1]
WASHINGTON The Securities and Exchange Commission said it has hired Renee Jones, a professor of law at Boston College, as the main regulator of state-owned companies.
Ms. Jones will oversee a division of more than 400 lawyers and accountants who write rules for companies that raise capital and disclose important news and events to shareholders. The division is playing a leading role in drafting a proposed planned rule that would require public companies to disclose more about the risks and impacts of climate change on their businesses.
Ms Jones, 56, has written reviews of the large private companies known as unicorns, which are valued at over $ 1 billion before going public. Over the past decade, the SEC has made it easier for private companies to raise capital, largely exempting them from agency oversight.
Renee Jones will be the SEC’s primary personnel regulator for public companies. Photo: Adam DeTour / Boston College Law School
She will replace interim director of divisions John Coates, also 56, who will assume the role of legal counsel for the agency, the SEC said in a press release. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Ms. Jones has taught courses in securities regulation, corporate governance and financial regulation.
Ms Jones wrote in a law review article in 2010 that if the financial crisis had damaged the credibility of the SEC, the regulator was likely to become a stronger and more competent regulator.
Ms Jones will take charge of the division at a time when new president Gary Gensler has laid out a broad regulatory agenda, including tackling some issues that became subject to new rules during the Trump administration.
Trump-era rules increased oversight of proxy advisers such as Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. During this period, the commission also raised the bar for small shareholders to submit governance and policy proposals. to be voted on at the company’s annual meeting.
Both of these rules adopted partisan lines, with Democratic commissioners opposing them.
Now under Democratic control, the SEC said last week in a biannual disclosure that it plans to propose changes to the proxy advice and shareholder proposal rules by next spring. The agency’s two Republican commissioners, Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, criticized the move on Monday, saying it looks like a seesaw game with our rulebook.
We are disappointed that the commission is devoting our scarce resources to overhauling the newly completed rules, the commissioners said in a statement.
Newsletter Sign-Up
Real-time savings
The latest weekly economic news, analysis and data curated by WSJ’s Jeffrey Sparshott.
The SEC’s corporate finance division is also expected to draft rules this year relating to trading structures known as special purpose acquisition companies, board diversity, officer and director operations, and to how companies monitor cybersecurity risks, according to last week’s disclosure.
Ms. Jones joined Boston College faculty in 2002, according to her biography on the university’s website. She previously practiced law with the firm of Boston Hill & Barlow, which closed in 2002.
In an essay published in 2017, Ms Jones wrote that private companies valued at over $ 1 billion, known as unicorns, had managed to evade governance structures and practices appropriate for companies of their size. She partly blamed deregulation measures, including some mandated by Congress, which made the publication increasingly obsolete.
Many unicorns, including Uber Technologies Inc., have since gone public. WeWork, another startup valued at over $ 1 billion, has registered to go public through a merger with BowX Acquisition Corp.
Write to Dave Michaels at [email protected]
Copyright 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
picture credit