Senator Elizabeth Warren is urging the Senate Banking Committee to scrutinize Securities and Exchange Commission chair nominee Paul Atkins before approving his appointment to head the agency.
Warren pointed out several yellow flags in a 34-page open letter dated March 23, including Atkins' financial relationships with regulated firms, his work for cryptocurrency companies, and his prior regulatory record, according to a letter released ahead of his confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday.
Atkins, a former SEC commissioner under President George W. Bush, was formally nominated to return as the agency’s chair on the day of President Donald Trump's inauguration. He had Trump's endorsement even as early as December, when the freshly elected Republican leader called him a "proven leader for common sense regulations."
Since his initial tenure at the SEC, Atkins has built a career advising financial firms as the founder and chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a Washington-based consultancy that provides regulatory strategy and compliance services to financial institutions.
Based on filings released by the Office of Government Ethics, Bloomberg reported that Atkins holds a stake in Patomak valued at more than $25 million. The firm’s client list has included Bank of America, Barclays, Virtu Financial, Exxon Mobil and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, among others. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said these relationships represent ongoing financial interests that could pose conflicts in his new role.
“Your financial ties to the industries you will soon regulate raise serious concerns about your ability to avoid conflicts of interest as a regulator,” Warren said in a statement Monday.
Atkins has pledged to resign as Patomak’s CEO within 90 days of confirmation and to recuse himself from matters involving the firm or its clients for one year. However, Warren has called for a longer, four-year cooling-off period and for broader transparency about his previous work for clients that may come under SEC oversight. The filings do not disclose whether Atkins lobbied government agencies on behalf of those clients or the specific regulatory issues Patomak addressed in its engagements.
Warren’s letter also highlighted Atkins’ ties to digital asset companies. In his filings with the government ethics office, he disclosed an investment of $1 million to $5 million in a fund managed by Off the Chain Capital, which markets itself as seeking to outperform Bitcoin. He previously held equity interests in blockchain firms Pontoro and Securitize, and served as co-chair of the Token Alliance, a crypto advocacy initiative affiliated with the Digital Chamber. He also advised FTX, the now-bankrupt crypto exchange led by Sam Bankman-Fried.
Under the Trump administration, the SEC has stepped back from its earlier Gensler-era regulation by enforcement approach to the crypto industry. Apart from dropping several long-running actions against high-profile exchanges like Coinbase and Robinhood, its working group led by Republican commissioner Hester Peirce has committed to making a more formal framework for crypto firms to follow
Atkins has since stepped down from his roles at those companies and committed to divesting his holdings within 90 days of confirmation. Still, Warren requested additional detail about his advisory role with FTX and the timing of his financial involvement with the firms.
“The decisions you make as Chair will have significant implications for the long-term health of American commerce and economic growth,” Warren said in her Monday statement. “Your decisions will also have significant impacts on the lives of hardworking Americans.”
The ethics disclosures revealed that Atkins and his spouse have a combined net worth of at least $327 million, making him the wealthiest individual to be nominated to lead the SEC in recent decades. His wife, Sarah Atkins, is an heir to Tamko Holdings, a privately held building products firm where Atkins serves as a director. He said he would resign from the board but retain stock in the company.
Atkins’ tenure at the SEC from 2002 to 2008 also drew criticism from Warren, who pointed to his support for deregulatory measures and opposition to certain post-crisis reforms.
"[I]n October 2015, you were the only dissenter among dozens of business leaders who were asked to draft a report titled 'Crony Capitalism: Unhealthy relations between business and government,' " Warren said, urging Atkins to "come to your nomination hearing prepared ... so that the Senate—and the American people—can better understand how you plan to lead this critical agency.”
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