Legal News

Atkins on Stoneridge: Have No Fear, the SEC is Here!

By Peter Lattman

Paul Atkins, the Republican SEC commissioner who many in the plaintiffs securities-fraud bar think of as a bête noire, pens a paean to the Stoneridge ruling on the WSJ op-ed page today. Click here for prior Law Blog Stoneridge coverage.

Does Stoneridge and the court’s subsequent dissing of the Enron shareholders’ appeal proof that the court is anti-investor? “Hardly,” Atkins writes. “It is the mark of a court that insists on predictability and the rule of law — principles that are fundamental to the protection of investors and success of their investments.” He adds: “The Supreme Court’s decision actually protects shareholders from creative and unpredictable new ways to extract large settlements, which always include an ample portion for the lawyers.”

He says that he and his colleagues at the SEC are “well positioned to hold responsible individuals accountable by imposing injunctions, officer and director bars, disgorgement, and civil penalties. Ill-gotten gains that the SEC recovers — along with civil penalties — may be disbursed to aggrieved investors without the usual cut for the plaintiffs’ lawyers.” And for egregious offenders, the SEC can refer cases to the DOJ, he says. ”

“The integrity of our capital markets and the welfare of investors depend on the adherence to the rule of law by all participants,” he concludes. “That is the lesson of Stoneridge.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).