"…Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, keynoted a Heritage Foundation and New Millennium Research Council forum, Retoothing the Tiger: Restoring Confidence in the Security and Exchange Commission, that included Tech Central Station Host James K. Glassman as a panelist…

…The SEC, according to Glassman, doesn't need new laws, money or authority to have bite. Instead it needs to reinvigorate its three key missions - to inform investors, fight fraud and promote free capital markets. Lately, he said, it has failed in all three areas.

On the information front, he suggested that Oxley's effort to get out information about mutual fund fees is exactly what the SEC and lawmakers should do - use "the bully pulpit" to educate investors about what's going on. Instead, he said, the SEC "has become obsessed with the wrong things - like proxy voting by mutual funds and forcing lawyers to rat on their clients."

In enforcement of fraud laws, he wondered why "WorldCom is still walking around?" Instead of being "punished with brutality" for promoting phony profits of $9 billion, WorldCom in its settlement with the SEC was not even required to admit any wrongdoing, just go out and sin no more. "What kind of example is this for investors and other corporate managers?" Glassman asked.

And, finally, in the promotion of capital markets, Glassman noted that "a real scandal" was the SEC's failure to approve exchange registration for Nasdaq, an obvious way to deepen and broaden capital markets for the benefit of all investors."…
http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-011603E

The Bond Buyer, January 16, 2003. NASD Investigating Funds' Fees; Oxley Requests GAO Report

"In a speech at an event held yesterday by The Heritage Foundation and The New Millenium Research Council, the Ohio Republican said that he [Rep. Michael Oxley] is particularly concerned that mutual fund companies are spending billions of their dollars on so-called soft-dollar arrangements with broker-dealers to purchase a wide array of outside research products…

Because these soft-dollar research commitments are tied to trading volume, they may interfere with best execution," Oxley said. "While perfectly allowable and legal, they may. . .be acting as a disincentive for the funds to do a good job for investors -- and that may rise to the level of a conflict of interest." Oxley told reporters that he plans to talk with Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., the chairman of the committee's capital markets panel, about holding hearings on soft-dollar arrangements and other mutual fund cost and fee issues. He and Baker sent a two-page letter to the GAO asking it to submit its mutual fund report to the committee by April 15.
http://www.bondbuyer.com

Congressional Quarterly, January 15, 2003. Oxley Sees SEC's Follow-Through as Key to Investor

"The beleaguered Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received a vote of confidence Wednesday from a House committee chairman who promised to work with the agency to restore investor confidence.

During a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael G. Oxley, R-Ohio, said the SEC "is and will remain the nation's pre-eminent securities regulator and the protector of investors…

Oxley emphasized the importance of the accounting industry oversight board created by the law. Controversy surrounding the selection of the board's initial chairman, William H. Webster, led to the resignations of Webster and SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt. Oxley said he also will watch closely the SEC's implementation of a provision that established a restitution fund for defrauded investors."
http://www.cq.com/