Annette Nazareth

Annette LaPorte Nazareth served as Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from August 4 2005 to January 31 2008. As a Commissioner, Nazareth worked on numerous groundbreaking initiatives, including execution quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms, implementation of a voluntary regime for consolidated supervision of broker-dealer holding companies and modernization of the national market system rules. Nazareth also served as the Commission’s representative on the Financial Stability Forum from 1999 to 2008. [Commissioner Nazareth Announces Intention to Leave SEC (press release) http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-210.htm]

According to the SEC, "Ms. Nazareth also championed the introduction of prudential regulatory principles to the Commission’s work under the Consolidated Supervised Entity program, a voluntary supervisory regime for the nation’s largest investment bank holding companies." [http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-210.htm]

Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch to bank holding companies, and the conversion of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs into bank holding companies, the CSE program was left without participating investment bank holding companies. As a result, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in September 2008 announced a decision by the Commission to end the CSE program. The Commission's official press release stated:

"The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work. When Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, it created a significant regulatory gap by failing to give to the SEC or any agency the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies, like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns." [http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-230.htm]

Cox took care not to attribute the demise of Bear Stearns to the CSE program, however. In a March 20, 2008 letter to the Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Cox stated: "As you will see, the conclusion to which these data point is that the fate of Bear Stearns was the result of a lack of confidence, not a lack of capital. When the tumult began last week, and at all times until its agreement to be acquired by JP Morgan Chase during the weekend, the firm had a capital cushion well above what is required to meet supervisory standards calculated using the Basel II standard." [http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-48.htm]

Born on January 27 1956 in Providence, Rhode Island, she received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She received her A.B., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Brown University in 1978.

Prior to serving as Commissioner, she served as SEC Director of the Division of Market Regulation from March 1999 to August 2005. As Director, she had primary responsibility for the supervision and regulation of the U.S. securities markets. She joined the Commission in 1998 as Senior Counsel to former Chairman Arthur Levitt and served briefly as the Interim Director of the Division of Investment Management.

Prior to joining the Commission, she held several positions in the financial services industry. She served as Managing Director of Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney from 1997 to 1998 as deputy head of the capital markets legal group. As a Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel of Lehman Brothers, she was the chief legal advisor to the fixed income division from 1994 to 1997. From 1986 to 1994, she served as Managing Director and General Counsel of Mabon Securities Corp. and its predecessor business, Mabon, Nugent & Co. She began her career as an associate with the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell in 1981.

Nazareth is currently a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell’s Financial Institutions Group. The firm offers her as an expert on complex regulatory matters and transactions. [Official biography on website of Davis Polk & Wardwell (http://www.dpw.com/lawyers/bio/nazareth.htm)]

She is married to Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., former vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and current CEO of TIAA-CREF. They have two children, a son Roger III and a daughter Caroline.

References

1.Commissioner Nazareth Announces Intention to Leave SEC (press release) http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-210.htm

2. SEC press release, Chairman Cox Announces End of Consolidated Supervised Entities Program http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-230.htm

3. SEC press release, Chairman Cox Letter to Basel Committee in Support of New Guidance on Liquidity Managementhttp://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-48.htm

4. Official biography on website of Davis Polk & Wardwell (http://www.dpw.com/lawyers/bio/nazareth.htm)