Financial News – The Securities and Exchange Commission, reduced to three Republican commissioners, is losing one of them.
SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins announced yesterday that he intends to step down after his term ends in June and his successor takes office.
The White House is expected to announce its plans to replace Atkins shortly. By law, no more than three of the five-member commission may be of the same political party as the president.
The administration recently nominated Atlanta attorney Luis Aguilar and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority senior executive vice president Elisse Walter to fill two Democratic openings on the commission, but the Senate has yet to act on the nominations.
"It’s been great working here," Atkins said in a telephone interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
He noted that he began his first term at the SEC nearly six years ago, when the agency confronted accounting scandals at companies such as Enron and WorldCom and is leaving at another rocky time for US markets and investors.
"We are once again in difficult times, and I am confident that the dedicated men and women at the SEC will be able to overcome the current challenges," Atkins said in his prepared statement.
A lawyer who previously served on the staff of SEC chairmen Richard Breeden and Arthur Levitt, Atkins’s tenure as a commissioner was marked by public disagreement with then-SEC chairman William Donaldson over proposals to regulate hedge fund advisors and require mutual funds to have independent chairmen.
