Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Goodbye to SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins

Jay Brown says good riddance:

Atkins, in his six or so years on the Commission, managed to be on the opposite side of almost every shareholder friendly initiative of any great importance. Stoneridge? Against the position taken by shareholder. Access? Against the position taken by shareholders. The Enforcement division, the office responsible for enforcing the investor protection requirements of the securities laws? Constant criticism and calls for a panel to evaluate (read weaken) the division. Fines imposed on companies that commit fraud? In general, against them. The credit crunch and the subprime problem? A pean to his anti-regulatory philosophy and a call not to “immediately jump” to the conclusion that the problems are from market or regulatory failure. His parting shot in the corporate governance area? To participate in the Commission’s decision to certify a shareholder proposal to the Delaware Supreme Court, an act that resulted in a predictably anti-shareholder decision that will now make proposals harder to insert in proxy statements.

In other words, Atkins was right every single time.