On July 19, 2023, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) held a hearing to review the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The only witness to testify was SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
The dominant themes of the hearing were (1) the pace of SEC rulemaking; (2) cryptocurrency policy and cryptocurrency fraud; and (3) ESG. Other topics receiving significant attention included (4) the SEC OIG’s 2022 report on SEC management; (5) recently proposed amendments to the SEC’s custody rule; (6) SEC telework policies; (7) the adequacy of the SEC’s responses to Congressional inquiries; (8) the SEC’s failure to proactively detect rampant fraud at FTX. Topics that were mentioned but did not feature prominently at the hearing included (9) China; (10) proxy advisors; (11) swing pricing. Dogs that might have barked but didn’t include: (12) investment adviser examinations; (13) FINRA; (14) Reg. BI; (15) RIA arbitration abuses ; (16) SEC market structure proposals; (17) MiFiDD II.
Here is our look at the notable takeaways from the hearing.
