SEC chief: New rules will reduce compliance costs

Rule changes for corporate financial controls that regulators will soon put forward will be significant and aimed at reducing compliance costs for companies while ensuring that investors are protected, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, in a speech, alluded to revisions the agency had been planning to make in response to business complaints that a key requirement of a 2002 anti-fraud law enacted after the wave of corporate scandals was overly burdensome and expensive. Copies of his speech in London, at a conference of an international securities regulators’ group, were distributed by the SEC in Washington.

Cox and the other four SEC commissioners are expected to tentatively adopt the changes at a public meeting Dec. 13. Some observers, including Lynn Turner, a former SEC chief accountant, say a major easing of the rules would erode the investor protections.