Some important news today on the financial crisis: The Securities and Exchange Commission has decided that it's enforcement division will no longer need the approval of the agency's commissioners to issue subpoenas when investigating potential securities violations. This is a big deal because, traditionally, the commissioners would take a majority vote to determine whether or not SEC staff could demand information from corporations and inviduals; typically, some commisioners who were less interested in regulating business would hold up the process and vote no, slowing investigations and hurting morale among SEC staffers. Now, it seems, the staff will be free to pursue their investigations, and commissioners will only approve decisions to seek penalties. Needless to say, it will be much harder for pro-business commissioners to brush off penalties with evidence right in front of them.I will note that there was some concern about the appointment of Mary Shapiro to chair the SEC, though she had a ton of relevant experience working at both the SEC and it's sister agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, because her previous job had been at FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA is an industry-sponsored non-governmental regulator, and many had assumed that Shapiro, coming from this organization, would be inclined to go easy on the bankers she had worked with closely in the past. But the signs coming from the organization thus far seem to indicate that Shapiro wants to pursue serious regulatory enforcement. Bully for her.-- Tim Fernholz
