Steady Stream of SEC Departures Continue with Resignation of Director of Corporation Finance
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Renee Jones, director of the Division of Corporation Finance, will depart the agency to return to her faculty position at Boston College Law School, effective Feb. 3, 2023.
Jones’ exit is the latest in an exodus of SEC staff in the last year few years under the leadership of chairman Gary Gensler as the federal securities regulator has embarked on an aggressive rulemaking regimen.
The agency has 4,500 staff members who are organized into six divisions and 25 offices located in the Washington, DC, headquarters and 11 regional locations.
According to Bloomberg Law, the Division of Corporation Finance has lost 95 staffers since January 2017, a majority of whom had more than ten years’ experience. It added 62 workers in that time, leaving a 33-person shortfall. The arrival data accounts for staff newcomers as of May 19, 2022, while the departure information ends at June 29, 2022.
The SEC inspector general said in a recent report that agency managers were concerned that the uptick in rulemaking activity is stretching staff thin.
According to the same report, the SEC has seen an attrition rate increase from 3.8% in 2020 to 6.4% as of Sept. 20, 2022
Senate Republicans sent a private letter dated Oct. 27, 2022, to the chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, adding to increasing speculation that the U.S. regulator lacks the ability to accomplish its rulemaking plans.
Gensler, a veteran Wall Street regulator who was chosen by President Joe Biden, has publicly battled with Republicans over the SEC’s proposals on corporate climate-related disclosures.
The letter claims that the SEC has introduced 26 new rule proposals in 2022, more than double the number in 2021 and the highest total of any year in the last five years, which they found in the report above from the SEC inspector general.
Senate Republicans Thom Tillis from North Carolina, Mike Crapo from Idaho, Tim Scott from South Carolina, Michael Rounds from South Dakota, Bill Hagerty from Tennessee and Steve Daines from Montana signed the letter.
Republicans want Gensler to explain how he will address the concerns in the report and also to allow more time for industry feedback on the many new rules proposed by the SEC under his tenure as commissioner.
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