Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Kathleen, for your kind comments. And special thanks to you and your colleagues in the Office of International Affairs for organizing what has become one of our most anticipated events of the year.
As always, I must begin with the customary disclaimer that the views I express here are my own as Chairman and not necessarily those of the SEC as an institution or of the other Commissioners.
But today, I must also note a stroke of serendipity. Thirty-five years ago to the day, a group of securities regulators from around the globe assembled here at the SEC for our inaugural Institute. You may know that my tenure as Chairman is actually my third term of employment at the SEC. So I know something about that first Institute in 1991 because, as an advisor to then-Chairman Richard Breeden, I had the privilege of helping to organize it. In fact, we had no budget back in those days, so it fell on me to buy and bring big urns of coffee for the delegates! So, one could say that I am a personal investor in the International Institute.
But we at the SEC believed then, as we do today, that the principles of investor protection, market integrity, and efficient capital formation do not stop at any nation’s border. As Chairman Breeden put it at that first SEC Institute, “the success of our common work as market regulators depends on the efforts of all of us.” More than three decades later, here we are on the same date, with the same mission, and with thousands of alumni to whom we have shared knowledge and offered training.
Indeed, I am proud to say that since that April morning of 1991, this Institute has run continuously, pausing only during the pandemic. This year, we have nearly 180 delegates from fifty-four jurisdictions. It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to Washington and to offer a few reflections before we begin the outstanding program that Kathleen and her team have prepared.
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Over the coming days, I understand that you will explore how to cultivate an effective ecosystem for capital market growth while preserving investor protection. You will consider ways to deepen international cooperation. To enhance broker-dealer oversight. And to grapple with emerging technologies like digital assets, AI, and machine learning as they reshape the future of finance.
Of course, these conversations matter because capital flows across jurisdictions at a speed and scale that outpace the reach of any one regulator. Because, in Chairman Breeden’s words, effective oversight depends on all of us.
Now, while the pace of modern markets has surely accelerated since our first Institute, a collaborative spirit has long defined how we steward them.
I think, for example, to the early 1990s, when the breach and collapse of the Berlin Wall gave way to an era that brimmed with possibility. Across the former USSR and Eastern Europe, countries began the work of building market economies from the rubble of central planning.
I had the great opportunity to have been posted as a young lawyer in the Paris office of a New York law firm. And I remember well the run up to the “Big Bang” of 1992, which gave rise to the European single market—and to the sweeping tides of opportunity that would follow. For those of us who were there at the time, it was invigorating to watch the Internal European Market take shape, animated by the forces of commerce and competition.
For its part, the SEC was no spectator. Shortly before the Wall fell, Chairman Breeden established the agency’s Office of International Affairs, which became an instrument through which the Commission could carry its expertise into far corners of the world. SEC staff stepped up to offer technical assistance to formerly Communist nations that were in great need of it; to investors, business owners, and market participants who were, at last, permitted to share in the growth of their own economies.
Our collaborative spirit found one of its most enduring expressions in the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as the IOSCO MMOU. Since 2002, the MMOU has facilitated regulators’ exchange of information with, and the provision of assistance to, their foreign counterparts on enforcement matters, which is essential to their mandates.
Today, more than 130 regulators, including many authorities represented here this week, have joined the MMOU. And together, we are supporting one another in compliance with laws and regulations.
As we expand the scope and sophistication of our cooperation in line with the capital markets that we oversee, I believe that this spirit must carry forward into the work before us across our policy, enforcement, and supervisory functions.
Let me briefly take each in turn.
First, I believe that close collaboration on regulatory policy can support the careful balance between capital formation and investor protection that all of us work to maintain. Insights in one jurisdiction can support policy development in another. And regulatory alignment reduces friction for companies while enhancing confidence among investors.
Second, bad actors design cross-border schemes like offering frauds, insider trading, and market manipulation to exploit the distance between our jurisdictions. Perpetrators rely on the assumption that information does not travel as freely as capital. Our task is to deny them that advantage by promoting the rule of law and enforceability of contracts without with free enterprise cannot function. That means sharing data quickly, coordinating actions effectively, and maintaining the relationships that make both of those aims possible. So, the SEC will remain steadfast in our engagement with our foreign counterparts around the globe—bilaterally and multilaterally, formally and informally—and keep lines of communication open, active, and ready when circumstances demand it.
Finally, let me turn to the agency’s supervisory and examination functions. Data analytics, surveillance tools, and emerging technologies require information-sharing between regulators so that we can anticipate regulatory frictions before they metastasize into market-level disruptions. So, looking forward, it behooves us to build on the momentum that we have attained, such as by expanding our communication channels, training opportunities, and the kind of cross-border collaboration that brings us here today.
Now, even as we work together to deepen our ties around the globe, I would be remiss not to note that this year’s Institute coincides with an especially meaningful moment here in the United States.
In the coming months, we will mark 250 years of American independence. Milestones of this magnitude demand more than ceremony. They ask something of us. They invite us to reflect, of course, but no less, to resolve. To strengthen a system in which opportunity is broad, markets are dynamic, and innovation has plentiful room to flourish.
This Institute, and the fellowship that it fosters, stand as a direct expression of that duty.
So let me take as my final words a part of what Chairman Breeden told the Institute participants some thirty-five years ago. “One major goal of the Institute,” he reminded them, “is to develop friendships that will last.”
That objective remains as true today as it was then. Indeed, the relationships that you form—or deepen—this week will endure long after this program concludes. And I am confident that they will prove their value in the steady exchange of information as assuredly as the moments that call for swift and coordinated action.
So, we are grateful for your presence here today and for your commitment to the shared work ahead. My hope for this week, and for the next thirty-five years of this Institute, is that we continue to strengthen the ties that bind both our agencies and nations together. The ties that make our markets more open, more fair, and more capable of unlocking the full measure of human ingenuity.
Thank you, and welcome.