U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs – delivered the following opening statement at the hearing ‘Oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’ on December 10, 2019:
"Over the past few years, in this Committee, we have seen the Trump Administration dismantle many of the protections we put in place after the last financial crisis, putting our financial system and hardworking families around the country at risk.
The SEC has flown under the radar, but often the agenda has been the same – taking Wall Street’s side over and over, instead of standing with investors saving for retirement or college or a down payment."...
"While I appreciate the Enforcement Division’s initiatives, including those to protect teachers and military service members from fraud and misconduct in financial advice, you’ve done so much damage by adopting what you call “Regulation Best Interest”. Under that rule, brokerage firms can merely disclose, but don’t have to eliminate, firm-level conflicts.
It should be simple – investment firms need to work for the people they serve. Americans need to have confidence the professionals that they’re trusting with their hard earned money are working for them, not scamming them to line the firm’s own pockets. You could have simply followed Congress’s guidance in the Dodd-Frank Act to create a uniform fiduciary standard for brokers and advisors, which would be the best way to give investors confidence that their interests come first. But you didn’t.
And that’s not the only part of Dodd-Frank you are working to undermine. Look at the SEC’s proposal to amend the whistleblower program, which is one of the most successful programs created under Dodd-Frank. We need brave workers to stand up to corruption and abuse when they see financial companies scamming people or engaging in other illegal behavior."
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