Top Bank Lawyer’s E-Mails Show Washington’s Inside Game

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/top-bank-lawyer-s-e-mails-show-washington-s-inside-game.html


Mary Schapiro, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington.

It had been two days since U.S. lawmakers negotiated all night to finish rules that would reshape the business of Wall Street. The 20-hour session left legislators, aides, lobbyists and regulators exhausted. Almost no one had a grip on all the details.

Then Annette Nazareth stepped in. That Sunday morning, she e-mailed a dozen Securities and Exchange Commission officials about the bill that would become the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act.

Nazareth, herself a former SEC commissioner, represents the biggest banks and securities firms as a partner in the Washington office of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. She attached an annotated copy of the measure to her June 27, 2010, e-mail, marking changes made during the wee hours. It could be an invaluable tool for an agency hard-pressed to analyze the bill on a tight deadline.

“In case you would find it helpful,” Nazareth wrote to the group, many of them ex-colleagues.


Annette Nazareth, a former SEC commissioner, represents the biggest banks and securities firms as a partner in the Washington office of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.