President-elect Donald Trump has nominated big-bank lawyer and cybersecurity advocate Jay Clayton to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Clients of Clayton, co-managing partner at the white shoe Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, have included Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and Ally Financial. He was hired by Bear Stearns in 2008 to assist with its sale to JP Morgan at the start of the financial crisis in 2008, when the company was threatened with bankruptcy.
Clayton was described as a proponent of big banks and someone without broad-based regulatory experience by a veteran Washington financial regulatory observer who refused to be named.
The Wall Street attorney has claimed cybercrime is “an act of war” and has urged the creation of a 9-11 type presidential commission made up of the best minds from all sectors to determine how to counter the threat.
The call to arms came in a paper he co-authored for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 2015. He has authored other articles on the topic as well.
If confirmed by the Senate, Clayton will succeed Mary Jo White, who has called cybercrime the biggest threat facing the securities industry. White leaves her post January 20, when Trump takes over the presidency from Barack Obama.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school, he taught a course there on mergers and acquisitions from 2009 to 2015
Trump and the Senate have two other positions to fill on the five-member commission as well.
About a year ago, President Obama nominated Democrat George Washington University Securities Law Professor Lisa Fairfax and Republican George Mason University Mercatus Center Financial Markets Working Group Director Hester Peirce to fill the vacancies.
But the nominations have been blocked by Elizabeth Warren, now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Senate Banking Committee Democrats because the two nominees refuse to say whether they would support requiring the SEC to mandate companies disclose political contributions.