-Caveat Lector- "In another SEC-related controversy, President Bush recently recommended that the agency's budget be slashed to $568 million from the $776 million budgeted by Congress."
>From SRiMedia CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Harvey Pitt SEC Chairman admits withholding info amid fresh calls for his resignation By Nov 1, 2002, 2:06pm New controversy has surrounded the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday after Chairman Harvey Pitt admitted that he had withheld information from his fellow commissioners on the day before the vote to select members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> This latest controversy started when Pitt's told the commission's four other members that former FBI director William Webster, the man the SEC chose last week to head the accounting board, had been a director at a company facing shareholder lawsuits alleging accounting fraud. Webster had chaired the board's audit committee. While Democrats have asked for Pitt�s removal White House spokesman Claire Buchan defended Pitt, saying, "We support him." According to The New York Times, which reported the story yesterday, Webster told Pitt about the issue before last week's vote and offered to withdraw his candidacy. Pitt told him that was unnecessary. However, after Pitt told the other commissioners of his omission, they asked that the SEC inspector general, Walter Stachnik, investigate the matter and Pitt agreed. Soon after, Democrats in Congress asked the General Accounting Office to investigate what happened. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., joined other Democrats calling for Pitt's resignation. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., who wrote the bill that created the oversight board, called for Pitt's removal last week after the SEC's 3-2 vote naming Webster to the post instead of a candidate opposed by accounting firms. "The public has lost confidence in the chairman," Sarbanes said. Webster was seen as a compromise candidate after business interests put the kibosh on John Biggs, a vocal activist for corporate accountability and the former manager of the TIAA-CREF pension fund. John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor, said it is not clear whether Pitt's decision to withhold information is unlawful -- but it certainly damages his credibility. "No one in the United States should be more conscientious about making full disclosure than the chairman of the SEC, and he hasn't done that," Coffee said. While it is unclear whether Webster acted improperly, "the question is whether he is too compromised to lead a reform agency when he himself has been involved in what seems like fairly dubious conduct regarding an accounting irregularity," Coffee said. U.S. Technologies, the company where Webster served as a director, is the target of both investor lawsuits and a federal probe for activities that occurred while Webster was chairman of its audit committee. Among other things, U.S. Technologies failed to publicly disclose that its accountant, BDO Seidman, had resigned after finding accounting irregularities on its books, the New York Times reported Thursday. GAO officials will examine Webster's directorships at both U.S. Technologies, which is nearly defunct, and a second company, NextWave Telecommunications, which is in Chapter 11, the Times reported in today's editions. Webster, a respected Washington veteran who has served as director of the FBI and CIA, told the Washington Post that his involvement with U.S. Technologies was beyond reproach. He told the Times that he does not intend to resign. An SEC spokesman said, "The staff reviewed Judge Webster's service on the audit committee of U.S. Technologies and identified nothing of concern." In another SEC-related controversy, President Bush recently recommended that the agency's budget be slashed to $568 million from the $776 million budgeted by Congress. � Copyright 2002 by SRiForum Limited -------------------------------------- Steve Wingate, Webmaster ANOMALOUS IMAGES AND UFO FILES http://www.anomalous-images.com Latest Update: Cydonia in 3-D http://www.anomalous-images.com/Odyssey/Cydonia_3-d.html <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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