Paul Atkins could be back in the SEC after 16 years.
Donald Trump, the President-elect of the United States, announced Atkins’ selection as SEC chairperson today. Atkins served as Richard C. Breeden’s chief of Staff and Arthur Levitt’s counselor in the SEC during the 1990s. Later, he served as an SEC Commissioner from 2002-2008. He began his tenure shortly after Enron’s accounting scandal and left a month prior to Lehman Brothers’ collapse.
Atkins now works as CEO for his firm Patomak Global Partners. Clients include crypto companies, securities market participants and banks.
Atkins knows Washington well and is familiar with the process of nomination. Atkins is a sure thing, as it only takes a simple’majority’ to confirm cabinet nominees.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if Atkins faced some tough questions (likely mostly from Democrats) during his confirmation hearings about his private sector business interests — particularly those related to crypto.
Why? Why?
In 2012, the SEC released hundreds of emails sent between its top officials after a FOIA was granted by Empower Oversight. Ripple found the correspondences particularly interesting, since it was 16 months after its SEC lawsuit over its XRP token.
These emails from May 2017, to December 2020 reveal that SEC officials are divided over which tokens breach securities laws. They also show which issuers need enforcement action. These emails highlighted an apparent conflict of interests involving William Hinman. He was the director of SEC’s corporation finance division from May 2017, to December 2020.
Hinman had been prohibited from participating in SEC issues that might affect his former employer Simpson Thatcher. Hinman held financial interests in the law firm while working at SEC. Simpson Thatcher owned a stake in Ethereum. The SEC did not take any enforcement actions against the company.
Blockworks covered this much more in detail in 2022. These emails are embarrassing to the SEC. They fought for them to be sealed as part of its lawsuit against Ripple. Documents provided clarity and context to the lawsuit. While they didn’t suffice to dismiss the case completely, Ripple was able to secure a partial victory in summary judgement.
So, given this history, I’d imagine certain senators — many of whom have advocated against perceived “pro-crypto” legislation in the past — will be interested to learn more about which companies Atkins has been involved with and what, if any, his financial exposure is.
But we’re still months away from the confirmation hearings. Atkins still hasn’t made a public announcement about his nomination. (He hasn’t responded to Blockworks requests for comments either.) So there will be more details to follow. The situation will be closely monitored.
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