Senate's Warren Rips SEC for Letting Cohen Start New Firm

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking the Securities and Exchange Commission to task for allowing Steven Cohen back in the hedge fund game just months after the billionaire settled allegations that he failed to supervise a convicted insider trader.

“This decision raises serious questions about the SEC’s ability to protect investors, to uphold the integrity of financial markets from corrupt, illegal investment management practices, and to impose meaningful accountability on wrongdoers,” Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote in a letter dated April 21 to SEC Chair Mary Jo White.

Warren is balking at an accord struck between the SEC and Cohen in January that bars him from running a hedge fund or overseeing traders who work at a firm that manages money for outside investors until 2018. The deal didn’t put restrictions on ownership and Cohen has formed a new firm named Stamford Harbor Capital that plans to invest external money in illiquid and nonpublic securities.

Warren, in her letter, wrote that Cohen’s move is an “unacceptable outcome” that makes a “mockery of the SEC’s core mission to protect investors.”

Federal Investigations

The terms in the SEC settlement with Cohen were “stronger than typical remedies available” under securities laws, said Andrew Ceresney, the regulator’s enforcement director. Ceresney said that is particularly true considering the constraints put on the SEC by a December 2014 court ruling that made it more difficult for insider trading cases to stick.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-21/senate-s-warren-rips-sec-for-letting-steven-cohen-start-new-firm