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TWX , Q , TYC ,,, Thomsen Named SEC Enforcement Director
Thursday May 12, 6:37 pm ET
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
Linda Thomsen, Deputy Enforcement Director of SEC, Named to Top Enforcement Position


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Linda Thomsen, the deputy enforcement director at the Securities and Exchange Commission, was named to the top enforcement position on Thursday.
Thomsen, whose appointment by SEC Chairman William Donaldson had been widely expected, is the first woman to hold the job. She succeeds Stephen Cutler, who is leaving the SEC after six years to return to the private sector.

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Thomsen worked with Cutler on the prosecution of many big companies embroiled in corporate scandals in recent years, overseeing the investigation and legal pursuit of numerous cases. Her current duties include supervising the SEC's ongoing investigation of Enron Corp.

Under Cutler's tenure as enforcement chief starting in late 2001, the SEC pursued civil enforcement actions against companies including Enron, WorldCom, Tyco International Ltd., HealthSouth Corp., Adelphia Communications Corp., Time Warner Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc. The agency's enforcement division also directed probes against mutual fund companies and brokers engaged in trading abuses, Wall Street investment firms and specialist firms on the New York Stock Exchange.

The SEC has estimated that during Cutler's tenure, the agency collected more than $6 billion in fines and restitution in settlements with companies, more than $4.5 billion of which has gone to aggrieved investors.

The agency attorneys recommend enforcement actions against companies and individuals to the five SEC commissioners, who vote in closed session on whether to approve them. In recent months, the commissioners have split over the issue of whether heavy fines imposed on miscreant companies are an effective crime deterrent or actually hurt shareholders.

In several recent cases, Bush appointee Donaldson has voted with the two Democratic commissioners, Roel Campos and Harvey Goldschmid, in favor of stiffer penalties -- and their three votes have prevailed as a majority. Goldschmid is leaving the SEC in the near future and it is not known how the person replacing him might lean.

Thomsen, 50, came to the SEC in 1995 as assistant chief litigation counsel and became deputy enforcement director in January 2002.

In a statement, Donaldson called her "a highly accomplished attorney with a proven record of effective advocacy on behalf of the nation's investors."

Before joining the government, Thomsen was in private practice at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell in Washington and New York. She also was an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland. She has a bachelor of arts degree from Smith College and a law degree from Harvard University.

Securities and Exchange Commission: http://www.sec.gov





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