New York partner John Carney, co-leader of the firm's national White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations group, was quoted in the May 7, 2009, Reuters' "Accounting and Compliance Alert" article, "Schapiro at 100 Days: The SEC's New Chief Has Her Own Agenda, But the Results Are a Long Way Off."
According to the article, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro, one of President Obama's key appointees, armed with a reformist agenda, is ready to put her stamp on the agency. But it may not be possible to determine whether or not she;s succeeded resolving the problems caused by the financial crisis until many years from now.
Schapiro is a "wartime chairman" who is focused on reshaping the SEC to be a more aggressive, litigation prone enforcement agency with more lawyers moving faster to enforce rulemaking, said Carney, a former Securities Fraud Chief, Assistant United States Attorney, and SEC Senior Counsel. However, the results and effectiveness of the efforts will take time, because Schapiro and the commission will have to balance the need to act quickly with the need to pursue the right cases. "The SEC is a battleship, not a boat," Carney said. "It takes a long time to move it around."