On April 22, Paul Atkins was sworn into office as the thirty-fourth Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a release from the regulator said.
President Donald Trump nominated Atkins on Jan. 20 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9.
“I am honored by the trust and confidence President Trump and the Senate have placed in me to lead the SEC,” Atkins noted. “As I return to the SEC, I am pleased to join with my fellow Commissioners and the agency’s dedicated professionals to advance its mission to facilitate capital formation; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and protect investors. Together we will work to ensure that the U.S. is the best and most secure place in the world to invest and do business.”
According to Accounting Today, Trump named Atkins in December as the next SEC chair, causing the departure of then-chairman Gary Gensler on Trump's Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. In between, commissioner Mark Uyeda was acting chair.
Uyeda, a Republican member of the SEC, had been slowing down rulemaking, Accounting Today reports, by withdrawing accounting guidance on crypto assets. Uyeda also did not defend a controversial climate disclosure rule while establishing a crypto task force. This task force is being led by Hester Peirce, who is another Republican commissioner.
Before returning as chair of the regulator, Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, which he founded in 2009. He was instrumental in efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset industry and was an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets from 2012 to 2015.
President George W. Bush appointed Atkins as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his this time at the SEC, he is credited as an advocate for transparency, consistency and the utilization of cost-benefit analysis at SEC.
He also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-European Union Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.