I was minding my business yesterday when I received a curious email from Mark Story, the SEC's "Director of New Media." He wrote that the next day, at 1:00 pm, the SEC would be holding a press conference on an unidentified "enforcement-related" topic. He said that after the press conference, the SEC would be hosting a "bloggers-only conference call" with a senior enforcement official to discuss the day's events. Would I be interested in attending, Story wrote?
Well, sure!
We held the call today at 2:15 pm, and it focused generally on the subjects announced today by the SEC (and previously discussed in detail in this
real-time discussion between me, Francine McKenna and Doug Cornelius):
1. "
SEC Announces Initiative to Encourage Individuals and Companies to Cooperate and Assist in Investigations;" and
2. "
SEC Names New Specialized Unit Chiefs and Head of New Office of Market Intelligence"
During the "bloggers-only" call, about a half-dozen bloggers (including Francine and Doug) were invited to ask a question to Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami about today's announcements. Doug has a
detailed write-up on his Compliance Building blog of the questions we posed and Khuzami's answers, which I recommend.
In short, I do not think we uncovered any new ground during the call, but I still think the call was quite significant. It appears to represent a real effort by the SEC to identify, reach out to, and develop relationships with "new media" such as bloggers, which may be very useful as the SEC attempts to restore its image and get its message of vigorous enforcement out to the public.