In terms of recent enforcement actions from the SEC, which many industry advocates argue has slowed progress by targeting companies that are unable to go to court and set a precedent, Peirce said the agency may be putting the cart before the horse.
“There is a more efficient way to do this,” she added. “If we think that there’s a problem in the industry, we need to deal with it through regulation, and then enforcement should follow the regulation.”
Before issuing an enforcement action or agreeing to a settlement, regulators might be better off opening the discussion up to public forums to create policy, Peirce said.
“Repeatedly, I have dissented from settlements in this space because I think what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to set the law through these settlements,” the SEC commissioner added. “Why not — for each of these major topics, where we see there to be some sort of securities angle — why not spell that out in some sort of preliminary written documents?”
Source: SEC’s Peirce: Gensler Is Trying To Do Too Much Too Fast – Blockworks
