Dingell and Markey Urge Pitt to Resist the Special Pleadings of Former Clients and Appoint Mr. Biggs as Head of the New Accounting Oversight Board

Washington, D.C. – Congressmen John D. Dingell, D-MI, and Edward J. Markey, D-MA, today wrote Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Harvey Pitt to express serious concern and displeasure regarding recent press reports indicating that, due to pressure from the accounting industry and its Republican supporters in Congress, he is backing away from the choice he and other members of the SEC earlier had favored to head the new oversight board that will oversee the accounting profession.

"I am not surprised to learn from these reports that the accountants are being aided and abetted in this travesty by Financial Services Chairman Mike Oxley who, press reports indicate, objects to Mr. Biggs for being not sufficiently moderate, presumably meaning Mr. Biggs might take needed action," said John D. Dingell, Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

According to these press accounts, "industry executives and at least one prominent Republican lawmaker had complained that the top choice, John J. Biggs, was too tough on the industry." The Congressmen note that Mr. Biggs’ nomination was widely hailed by many market participants, academics, and by former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, citing numerous favorable reports about Mr. Biggs from institutional investors, pension funds, and other market observers and participants. The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, hardly a proponent of excessive regulation, called Mr. Biggs "a sensible choice."

"We were therefore startled and dismayed to read in Friday’s New York Times that ‘the selection process has been thrown into turmoil, as the accounting profession, which lost the battle in Congress two months ago over how it should be regulated, has turned to Mr. Pitt, one of its former top lawyers before he joined the government, to try to win the war’," Dingell and Markey wrote.

Dingell and Markey concluded by urging Pitt to resist the special pleadings of his former clients in the accounting profession, and appoint Mr. Biggs as head of the new accounting oversight board.

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[Editor’s Note]  See the Dingell-Markey letter to Pitt