Some SEC Lawyers Change Sides Within Days of Leaving the Agency
Some lawyers and other professionals who leave the Securities and Exchange Commission are representing clients on the other side within days of their departure.
A public records request by the Wall Street Journal turned up 66 former SEC employees who disclosed clients or new employers they planned to represent before the agency. The disclosures were made in letters filed with the SEC in 2008 and the first nine months of 2009. Such letters disclosing representation are required to be filed for a two-year period after an employee leaves.
“The revolving door can turn swiftly at the Securities and Exchange Commission,” the story says.
The Wall Street Journal gives two examples. Andrew Dunbar, an enforcement lawyer in the SEC’s Los Angeles office, took a job with Sidley Austin. Eleven days later, he was representing a client seeking information from the same office.
In another case, Martin Dunn, a former deputy director in the corporation finance division, left in 2007 and joined O’Melveny & Myers. Senior officials are barred from advocating on behalf of clients before the SEC for one year. After the time was up, he filed disclosures within weeks showing new clients he was representing in SEC matters.
An SEC official told the newspaper that the ethics disclosures are an extra precaution. Other observers pointed to several restrictions in federal laws that prevent conflict of interest, including the one-year ban on representation that applies to former senior officials and commissioners.
Another rule permanently bars former employees from handling matters involving parties whose cases they worked on at the SEC. Yet another bars supervisors from taking on matters for two years that had been handled by subordinates.
