When Mary Schapiro becomes Chairman she like Commissioner Walters will be recused from participating in appeals from FINRA disciplinary actions. This means that a mere three Commissioners - two of them Republicans will decide all such appeals.
To this observer it appears that the Cox Commission has de-emphasized Commission enforcement action against FINRA regulated broker-dealers and registered persons and offloaded a substantial share of such enforcement actions to FINRA.
It is time to reinvigorate the Commission's own enforcement actions against broker-dealers and associated persons. It is also not unreasonable to conclude that a Cox lead de-emphasis on Commission enforcement actions against the industry has played a major role in the collapse and reorganization of the big brokerage firms, the Madoff mess, the marketing of toxic exotic securities and other recent issues.
Lexisnexis
