Atkins Delivers Remarks at Economic Club of Washington, DC

In April, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins delivered remarks at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington DC. In his remarks, Chair Atkins highlighted that his experiences early on at the SEC have shaped how he approaches his current role as Chair. He noted that in recent years the Commission took its core mission – protecting investors, maintaining fair and orderly markets, and facilitating capital formation – and “constructed around those core pillars a thicket of obligations that were unmoored from any of them, precipitating a disclosure regime that had been hijacked to serve interests beyond those of investors; an enforcement program that had become a de facto instrument of our rulemaking function; and a path to going public that had grown so costly, so litigious, and so politically fraught that an untold number of entrepreneurs understandably chose to remain private or to list elsewhere.” Chair Atkins stated that he is working towards a regulatory regime that advances modern regulatory frameworks, clarifies jurisdictional lines, and transforms the SEC’s regulatory rulebook to follow the core principles – the ACT strategy.

While describing the merits of this strategy, Chair Atkins highlighted the Commission’s focus on private credit, including elevated redemption requests and default rate projections. He stated, “opacity in this space can be an issue,” adding that valuation, transparency, and credit quality are key for investors to understand, as well as the higher fees that follow this asset class. He emphasized, however, that the Commission’s goal is to have “a wider group of investors, guided by their fiduciaries, to be able to participate in broader, diversified investment choices with the information and guidance that they need to make sound decisions, with reasonable safeguards in place.”

Click here to read Chair Atkins’ full remarks.