Senate Panel Sets Date for Gensler SEC Nomination Hearing
The Reddit GameStop squeeze will likely be front and center for Gensler's SEC.
The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled for March 2 a nomination hearing for Gary Gensler, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gensler, former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, faces numerous tasks once confirmed by the Senate, with the Reddit GameStop squeeze likely front and center.
He is also expected to bring a “heightened level of enforcement activity” at the securities regulator, specifically concerning investment advisers and broker-dealers, according to an analysis by the law firm Gibson Dunn.
Gensler also spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs. He was chairman of the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission from 2017 to 2019, was senior advisor to former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and helped write the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Gensler is professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, co-director of MIT’s FinTech@CSAIL and senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative.
As a fiduciary supporter, Gensler’s priorities will include beefing up the “weak protections” in the agency’s Regulation Best Interest, according to Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America.
One priority: defining “best interest.”
Pictured: Gary Gensler (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)