Publication Type
Working Paper
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
6-2018
Abstract
Government officials, advocacy groups, and the business press have raised concerns that former SEC employees may continue to influence the SEC after leaving the agency. Using a hand-collected database of individual lawyers that represent firms in responding to SEC comment letters, we examine the impact of individual lawyers, and lawyers formerly employed by the SEC, on the comment letter process. We document significant differences between lawyers and law firms in their clients’ resistance to SEC comment letters, and find that firms that retain former SEC employees are larger, more profitable, and more likely to have received a comment letter raising accounting issues. After matching on lawyer, comment letter, and firm characteristics, we find evidence consistent with former SEC employees increasing resistance in the comment letter process: conversations involving former SEC employees involve more negotiation, and result in fewer financial statement amendments.
Keywords
SEC comment letters, external counsel, revolving door, regulatory capture
Discipline
Accounting | Accounting Law | Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
Research Areas
Corporate Reporting and Disclosure
First Page
1
Last Page
45
Identifier
10.2139/ssrn.3096855
Publisher
SSRN
Citation
SHEN, Michael and TAN, Samuel T..
Individual lawyers, the SEC revolving door, and comment letters. (2018). 1-45.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1725
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3096855
Included in
Accounting Commons, Accounting Law Commons, Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons
Comments
Published in Journal of Accounting and Public Policy (2023) DOI: 10.1016/j.jaccpubpol.2023.107080