Administration seeks to bolster SEC's authority

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has sent Congress proposed legislation designed to protect investors by bolstering the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The proposal unveiled Friday is part of the sweeping plan for overhauling the U.S. financial rule book that the administration is pressing Congress to enact to help avert another meltdown. It seeks to put investment advisers providing services to retail investors and stockbrokers under the same standards of conduct, and to strengthen rules governing the timing and quality of disclosures by investment funds.

For example, the SEC could require that investors be given a concise summary prospectus of funds and a simple disclosure showing the costs of a fund before the completion of a sale. Currently, most fund disclosures and prospectuses don't have to be delivered to investors until after a transaction is completed.

The 20-page legislative proposal also clarifies the SEC's authority to conduct consumer testing as a way of creating more effective and clearer disclosure documents.

In addition, the SEC would be empowered to establish a fund to pay whistleblowers for information leading to enforcement actions and financial penalties against companies and individuals violating securities laws. Gaps would be closed in the SEC's legal authority to pursue parties that aid securities fraud.

The SEC was widely assailed over its failure to detect the multibillion-dollar fraud scheme of money manager Bernard Madoff despite red flags raised by outsiders over a decade. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro has taken steps aimed to strengthen and speed the agency's enforcement efforts and installed a new enforcement director. The agency also has made rule changes in recent months to bolster investor protection.

A key element of the administration's overhaul package is creation of a new Consumer Protection Financial Agency to police the fine print on consumer products such as credit cards and mortgages.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, testifying before a House panel Friday, called for greater government control over the mostly unregulated and complex market for derivatives blamed for contributing to the financial crisis.