Jay Clayton's Senate confirmation hearing got off to an uneventful start yesterday.

Jay Clayton Sullivan & Cromwell Partner

As InvestmentNews notes, the topic of the fiduciary reg did not come up.

Senate Democrats zeroed in on Clayton's ties to Wall Street, saying that they would diminish his effectiveness as SEC chief. Clayton, a partner with Sullivan & Cromwell, has worked with companies including Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. According to SEC ethics rules, Clayton would have to recuse for two years from any cases involving former clients, the FT reports.

In cases where Clayton can't participate, the SEC could potentially have an even split of Democrat and Republican votes, P&I notes, which didn't sit well with Senator Elizabeth Warren.

She commented, "With you, Wall Street can breathe a little easier knowing that you won’t be voting against them, and there’s likely to be weaker enforcement."

Clayton also talked about plans to pare back regulations to encourage more companies to go public (he worked on Alibaba's 2014 IPO) and committed to reviewing the effectiveness of Dodd-Frank. However, according to the WSJ, he has not committed to calls from President Trump to dismantle the regulation.  

Edited by: Katy Golvala


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