Will "Big Beautiful Bill's" Elimination of PCAOB Go Through?

Plus reports from the $TRUMP memecoin dinner.

Author

Bruce Carton
May 23, 2025

Good morning! Here’s what’s up.

People

Scott Marrah, former AUSA in the SDNY, and Adria Perez have joined Reed Smith as partners in the firm’s Atlanta office.

Clips ✂️

GOP Pushes to Eliminate Audit Oversight Watchdog, Shift Duties to SEC

Republicans who support the proposal say the PCAOB has become overly politicized and performs duties duplicative of the SEC and that moving its functions to the commission would make them more accountable to Congress.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who criticized the board as an SEC commissioner in the mid-2000s, said at a congressional oversight hearing Tuesday that the commission is “fully capable” of taking on the PCAOB’s work but would need more resources to do so.

In a column posted to Medium this month, Goelzer wrote that the SEC already essentially controls everything the board does without needing to invest its own resources or perform the daily functions.

“Under the merger proposal, the SEC would lose this ability to use regulatory leverage and instead become the frontline audit regulator,” Goelzer wrote. “The result is likely to be dilution of both audit oversight and of the SEC’s ability to perform its other investor protection responsibilities.”

Since the PCAOB is not taxpayer-funded, moving its functions to a federal agency would only add to the federal budget, he added.

by NLJ

👉 In this article in Corporate Crime Reporter, Lynn Turner, a former SEC Chief Accountant, states that “the Democrats in the Senate are likely to go to the Parliamentarian and seek a ruling that some of this legislation that gets put into the so-called Big Beautiful Bill is not relevant to the budget and therefore cannot be included in the Big Beautiful Bill.”

Turner says “the question then becomes – does the parliamentarian want to keep her job or not? If you are in one of these senior roles in DC today, the question is – are you going to give them the answer they want, or are you going to give them what you think is the right answer? If you give them an answer and they don’t like it, there is a good chance you are going to be unemployed within 24 hours.”

Turner concludes: “If I were betting on this, I would bet that it will go through. I hope it won’t.”

Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind

President Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Mr. Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

by NYT

Securities Enforcement Forum West 2025: Embracing Change in the SEC’s New Chapter

Senior Division of Enforcement officials from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) spoke with SEC alumni, private practitioners, and other professionals at the Securities Enforcement Forum West 2025 (the Forum), held on May 15, 2025, in Los Angeles—nearly one month after Chairman Paul Atkins was sworn in.

SEC Enforcement West Deputy Director Kate Zoladz opened her remarks at the Forum by quoting Mark Twain: “reports of the SEC’s death have been greatly exaggerated,” emphasizing the staff’s return to basics and intent to continue protecting investors. While panelists opined on the changing tides as Chairman Atkins steps in, it remains clear that the focus will be on bringing “bread and butter” enforcement actions.

by Perkins Coie

👉 Very comprehensive article by Jose Lopez, Kathryn Campbell, Gina Buschatzke and Katherine Pokorny about last week’s Securities Enforcement Forum West (thank you!).

Here is the full video of the panel that SEC Enforcement West Deputy Director Kate Zoladz participated on (“The First 100+ Days of Trump 2.0: New SEC Leadership, Priorities, and Organization … and What Comes Next”).

Everything is securities fraud: tariffs

The point here is that the risks are symmetrical. If a retailer says in its public statements “tariffs won’t be a big deal for us,” and then its earnings are disappointing and the stock goes down, someone could sue for securities fraud, saying that the company misled investors.

If instead it says “tariffs will be a big deal for us,” and then Donald Trump tweets mean things about it, and then its earnings are disappointing and the stock goes down, someone could also sue for securities fraud. This one is less obvious — who is being deceived?— but these days “making people mad about politics” is pretty clearly the sort of bad thing that can get you sued for securities fraud….

by Matt Levine’s Money Stuff

👉 Levine continues:

“Everything is securities fraud” is kind of my schtick, so I get emails asking me questions with one or both of the following forms:

  • Is it securities fraud for a company to do some thing that Donald Trump wants?

  • Is it securities fraud for a company not to do some thing that Donald Trump wants?

‘Major Wake-Up Call’: How $400M Coinbase Breach Exposes Crypto’s Dark Side

Last week’s highly organized breach of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) left behind more questions than answers.

While some hailed Coinbase’s response as a “really great example” in dealing with a crisis, the breach has now caused a potentially massive privacy issue that mirrors the Ledger data breach in 2021 — which led to a spate of real-world robberies as criminals were able to get a hold of names and addresses of crypto holders.

Coinbase has already agreed to reimburse users for any potential losses and expects to incur between $180 million and $400 million related to the breach, the firm revealed in an SEC filing.

by CoinDesk

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