Keith Paul Bishop reports:
More than six decades ago, the late Professor Marver H. Bernstein published his theory of regulatory capture in Regulating Business By Independent Commission (Greenwood Press 1955). According to his theory, agencies follow a life cycle of birth, maturity and old age. As an agency enters senescence, it inevitably becomes captive to the groups that it regulates.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently issued universal proxy proposalappears to provide some support for the notion that a small cadre of institutional investors has captured the agency. According to the SEC, the proposal’s genesis was a 2013 recommendation of the Investor Advisory Committee followed by a rulemaking petitionsubmitted by the Council of Institutional Investors. What isn’t apparent from the SEC’s release is the substantial overlap between these two groups. In fact, the following members of the CII are associated with individuals serving on the IAC.
AFL-CIO
California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)
California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS)
CFA Institute
Readers of the SEC’s proposal also wouldn’t know that when the IAC made its recommendation, Joseph Dear was CalPERS’ Chief Investment Officer as well as a former Chair of the CII. Anne Simpson, a CalPERS officer, currently serves as a member of the IAC. Thus, it is no surprise that the SEC’s proposal also cites a letter from CalPERS in support of support for SEC action. The IAC’s current Vice Chair, Anne Sheehan, serves as Director of Corporate Governance at CalSTRS. She was married to Mr. Dear and also served twice as Chair of the CII.
Maybe what the Trump SEC needs is an independent voice--perhaps one from academia?--who is critical of institutional investors.
