Thank you very much, Adam [Farkas], for your kind introduction, and for the invitation to join you all this evening. I regret that a government shutdown here in the United States prevented me from joining you in person today. But I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this conversation virtually, and to discuss ways in which we can work together on matters of mutual concern.

Let me begin by thanking Adam and our hosts at AFME for their flexibility under these circumstances. And let me also add that the views I express here are my own as Chairman of the SEC and not necessarily those of the SEC as an institution or of the other Commissioners.

I understand that, by design, tonight’s dinner will spark a constructive dialogue on transatlantic cooperation. That sentiment captures the spirit in which I appear before you this evening—here to speak, of course, but no less, to listen.

After all, headlines can emphasize our differences. But, if my time in public service has taught me anything, it is that wisdom more reliably dwells in the lessons of our past than in the passions of the present. History, I think, has a way of steadying us.

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