Duo tipped to battle it out for SEC chairman role
New York state attorney general and current SEC commissioner are in the running to replace Christopher Cox as SEC chairman
Christopher Cox
The attorney general of the state of New York and a current SEC commissioner
are being tipped as the front-runners to replace Christopher Cox as the next
chairman of the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
As the US presidential election draws closer, speculation is mounting about
who a new president will appoint in Cox’s place. Cox has been a great supporter
of international accounting standards.
One name in the frame is Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of the state of
New York. Oddly, Cuomo the son of former New York governor and leading
Democrat Mario Cuomo was first floated as a candidate for the SEC post by John
McCain, the Republican nominee during an interview last month. So far, Barack
Obama has not publicly addressed the issue.
But John Coffee, law professor at Columbia University, thought that one
current SEC commissioner, Elisse Walter, would also be an ‘obvious person’ to
include on any shortlist for the chairman’s job.
An incoming president usually picks an SEC chairman within six months of
taking office.
Cuomo is a Democrat who was President Clinton’s housing secretary. But
accounting professor at the University of North Carolina Wayne Landsman said he
might lose to an insider because ‘SEC commissioners tend to be securities
lawyers’.