Recently SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher issued a paper, titled Did Harvard Violate Federal Securities Law? (described on the Forum here and in a WSJ article here). The paper, co-authored with Professor Joseph Grundfest, expressed the Commissioner’s opinions regarding shareholder proposals and the Harvard Law School clinic that assisted public pension funds filing those proposals in the previous three years. The Commissioner did not mince his words. In his opinion, Harvard University and its clinic violated the securities laws by assisting proponents that failed to include references to academic studies contrary to the views of those proponents. The Commissioner was clearly presenting a threat to the University and its clinic. However, his statements also raise a number of questions about his own behavior.

To begin with, the Commissioner should have recognized that, as Professor Macey has shown in a series of posts (available on the Forum here, here, and here), his accusations are without merit and the proposals were entirely consistent with current SEC rules, policies and practices. Furthermore, in making his accusations, the Commissioner deviated from standard SEC procedures and practices.

I am unaware of any case in which a sitting SEC Commissioner released a paper accusing particular individuals or organizations of legal violations, and urging enforcement action and/or private suits against them, or used such public accusations as an instrument for urging other Commissioners or the SEC staff to change their policy. In a recent comment to the New York Times, Harvey Pitt brought up as a possible precedent a 1974 speech by then-Commissioner A.A. Sommer who expressed concerns about “going-private” transactions. However, Sommer’s speech (available on the SEC website here) did not mention (let alone accuse) any particular individuals or organizations (the only mention of any names in the Speech is in footnote citations to past court cases). There is a big difference between discussing general policy problems, which SEC Commissioners should be doing, and attacking or urging actions against particular individuals and organizations, which SEC Commissioners should not be doing.

The SEC Canon of Ethics (available here), which is binding on SEC Commissioners, warns SEC officials to be wary of using their “power to defame and destroy”. The Cannon of Ethics guides SEC officials to avoid defaming individuals or organizations. The Canon provides:

“§ 200.66 Investigations. The power to investigate carries with it the power to defame and destroy. In determining to exercise their investigatory power, members should concern themselves only with the facts known to them and the reasonable inferences from those facts. A member should never suggest, vote for, or participate in an investigation aimed at a particular individual for reasons of animus, prejudice or vindictiveness. The requirements of the particular case alone should induce the exercise of the investigatory power, and no public pronouncement of the pendency of such an investigation should be made in the absence of reasonable evidence that the law has been violated and that the public welfare demand it.”

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