The Securities and Exchange Commission has formally proclaimed the independence of its Office of the Ethics Counsel as a stand-alone unit with in the agency. The head of the office, known as the Ethics Counsel, will now report directly to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro instead of reporting to the Commission’s general counsel as previously done.
Several rules in the Code of Federal Regulations governing the operations of the SEC were amended to allow the Ethics Counsel Office to act independently. Some of the changes made include eliminating the oversight functions of the General Counsel Office over the ethics department and mandating that the ethics counsel serve as counselor for the Commission and all its staff on issues related to ethics and conflicts of interest and act as the liaison on behalf of the Commission with other departments on ethics-related issues.
