New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Congressman Michael Oxley (R.-Ohio) got into a dissing match yesterday, even as each tried to take full credit for corporate governance reforms.
Oxley got the fight going when, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said Spitzer’s proposals to regulate Wall Street research and accounting would cost jobs on Wall Street.
“I really don’t think it serves anyone’s best interests, other than the political futures of some,” Oxley said of Spitzer’s call for tougher New York laws regulating Wall Street.
“We have national markets,” Oxley added. “They ought to be regulated by the Congress and by the SEC.”
Spitzer first launched his investigation into tainted Wall Street research, which eventually led to a $1.4 billion fine paid by 10 top brokerages, because the SEC had not done anything.
“Congressman Oxley apparently still does not understand that the vast majority of corporate fraud cases are brought by state regulators using state laws, because the SEC simply doesn’t have the manpower to address all the frauds that occur nationwide,” Spitzer responded.
“While Congressman Oxley purports to be defending our system of capital formation, he is actually undercutting that goal by opposing strong laws and aggressive enforcement against corporate wrongdoers,” Spitzer said.