The Securities and Exchange Commission named Robert W. Cook, a partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, as the new director of the Division of Trading and Markets.
Cook, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Cleary Gottlieb, has focused in recent years on over-the-counter derivatives transactions, new financial products, securities trading and compliance issues. He has also served as counsel to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association in matters related to broker-dealers.
"Robert has an incredible grasp of the issues confronting the Division and a deep understanding of securities markets," SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said in a statement on the SEC’s web site.
Among other topics, the Division of Trading and Markets is currently focused on hot-button issues related to short selling, high-frequency trading, dark pools, flash orders and co-location. The SEC is also under the gun from Senators Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Ted Kaufman, D-Del., both of whom have criticized the Commission for what they describe as weak oversight of the securities markets. They have agitated for new regulations and a broad review of market structure issues.
Cook, who is 44, joined Cleary Gottlieb in 1992. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School that same year, and a M.S. in industrial relations and personnel management from the London School of Economics in 1989. He was an undergraduate at Harvard University.
The Division of Trading and Markets director position has been vacant since Erik Sirri, the former director, left in April to return to academia. James Brigagliano and Daniel Gallagher, two SEC veterans who are deputy directors of the division, have served as co-acting directors for the last six months.
The Division of Trading and Markets oversees self-regulatory organizations, clearing agencies, broker-dealers, credit ratings agencies, transfer agents and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Schapiro has been bent on bringing outside talent into the SEC for key positions. The injection of new blood in the wake of the drubbing the SEC received last year for not preventing some of the abuses on Wall Street and for missing the Madoff Ponzi scheme despite repeated warnings is seen as part of an ongoing effort to reinvigorate the agency.
"We have brought in almost 100 percent new senior leadership into the agency," Schapiro said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in late August. At the time, she said, the SEC still had two key positions left to fill: the director of the Division of Trading and Markets, and the director of the Office of Inspections and Examinations. The OCIE position has not yet been filled.
Schapiro noted in the interview that the Commission had a new enforcement director, a new director of corporate finance, a new general counsel and a new chief in its New York office, the largest of the SEC’s regional offices. Schapiro joined the SEC in January and is in the process of beefing up the agency’s reputation, its future as a regulatory institution, and its role as the chief watchdog of the securities markets.
