Tag: Atkins

Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box nearly a year into his tenure, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins looked like a man who finally found the keys to a house that had been locked from the inside for years. He promised a “new day” at the agency, and if his blueprint is any indication, the SEC is trading its litigation-first boxing gloves for a more sophisticated set of tools designed to actually help markets function.

Atkins distilled his vision into a three-letter acronym that even a distracted day trader can remember: ACT. That stands for Advance, Clarify, and Transform. It is a sharp pivot from the Biden administration, which seemed to prefer “Sue, Silence, and Stagnate” as its unofficial motto.

The “Advance” portion of the plan focuses on modernization. Atkins admitted that for too long, the SEC’s default setting was to fend off new technologies rather than understand them. By embracing innovation, he hopes to entice firms that fled to offshore jurisdictions to bring their products back to U.S. soil.

When it comes to “Clarify,” Atkins insists clarity is very much needed. The SEC has long been criticized for its “we’ll know it when we see it” approach to digital assets. To fix this, Atkins highlighted a joint interpretive release with the CFTC that finally draws a line between tokenized securities and commodities. If you’re a developer, knowing whether you’re building a security or not is generally considered helpful.

The “Transform” pillar is perhaps the most ambitious, aiming to make the SEC rulebook “fit for purpose.” Atkins wants to make initial public offerings (IPOs) great again, noting that the number of public companies in the U.S. has been cut in half over the last thirty years. He argues that the public markets have become so burdensome that companies are staying private longer than a college student on a ten-year plan.

Source: No More Suing: SEC Chair Paul Atkins Swaps Lawsuits for ‘ACT’ Strategy – Bitcoin News

When Paul Atkins took the helm of Wall Street’s top regulator, he came with a long to-do list: craft rules for the cryptocurrency industry, make initial public offerings “great again” and ease financial reporting for public companies.

A year into the job, there are few check marks next to those big tasks.

That’s been a disappointment for some industry players, who cheered when President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. A familiar face in the building, he was known for favoring light-touch regulation as an SEC staffer in the 1990s before becoming a commissioner during pivotal moments like the fallout from the Enron Corp. accounting scandal and the start of the financial crisis.

That agency experience and years as a private-sector consultant cast him as an ideal candidate to get a pro-business agenda rolling, knowing rules can take around 18 months to two years to complete due to the necessary votes and public input. But even a Washington insider like Atkins can get off to a slow start.

Source: Atkins Faces Ticking Clock as He Reshapes Rules for Wall Street