SEC Commissioner Mark T Uyeda said the agency revised its quorum rules to ensure enforcement actions continue despite fewer commissioners. He noted that the change prevents well-resourced defendants from escaping accountability. Uyeda added that the departure of Commissioner Hester Peirce was not abrupt, as she joins Regent University in November.
From Mark T Uyeda, Commissioner, US Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, DC, US
The US Securities and Exchange Commission's commitment to its mission remains unchanged, despite the departure of my good friend, Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Suggesting that the SEC is "hastily revamp[ing]" its quorum rule so
that the remaining commissioners can "have their way" makes for a colourful comparison to fictional dystopian regimes but misleads readers about why the Commission revised its quorum rule and why it's for the better.
The bleak and draconian picture of the SEC rules painted in Robin Wigglesworth's FT Alphaville column ("One person is now a quorum at the SEC", FT.com, October 5) obscures the historical record that this is not the first time in the SEC's 92-year history where there were fewer than three commissioners.
In the Clinton administration, the SEC had only two Democratic commissioners. Reductions in Commission composition are neither new, nor evidence of institutional decay. The article also overlooks that commissioners are subject to strict federal government ethics rules, which mandate recusal under certain circumstances.
These recusals primarily affect enforcement decisions, not agency rulemaking as Wigglesworth suggests.
In 2015, Senator Elizabeth Warren heavily criticised the then SEC chair Mary Jo White for recusing herself from enforcement matters due to conflicts of interest, railing that her absence deadlocked the agency and let bad actors off the hook.
The prior rule allowed the Commission to act under one commissioner. This rule change maintains that practice but clarifies that the Commission can establish a quorum if all but one commissioner is disqualified from a matter.
Without this change, a two-member Commission could be stymied from taking enforcement action against Wall Street firms -- both sell-side investment banks and buy side -- public companies and others solely for lack of a quorum. Well-resourced defendants would loudly proclaim lack of authority for the SEC attorneys litigating their cases. Allowing such persons to escape accountability hardly seems the outcome desired either by the investing public or your correspondent.
And one final note: Regent University announced in May 2026 that Peirce would be joining its faculty in November -- far from an abrupt or unexpected departure.