Trump’s pick for SEC chairman was Wall Street’s expert for hire

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The incoming chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission built a career dealing with regulators—as their adversary. When AT&T needed an ally to thwart a 2021 SEC lawsuit, it hired Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner who in 2009 began building a profitable yet opaque niche as one of Wall Street’s go-to advisers in Washington.

Atkins, nominated as President Trump’s next SEC chairman, served as an expert witness for the telecom giant, telling a court that AT&T hadn’t violated a law that forbids companies from selectively disclosing nonpublic information to Wall Street analysts. A judge in pretrial proceedings said there was formidable evidence that the company had. AT&T settled soon after for a $6.25 million fine without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

Companies have hired Atkins to serve as an expert witness in at least 15 cases, according to his court disclosures, where he sometimes argued that law enforcers stretched the bounds of the law to target permissible corporate practices. If his Senate confirmation proceeds as expected, Atkins will be in a position to bring that mentality to the commission, which could result in a retreat from enforcement actions that target regulatory gray areas. David Rosenfeld, a former SEC enforcement lawyer, said the SEC under Atkins will likely pull back from filing lawsuits over disclosures that aren’t indisputably important to investors.