Warns of ‘Elevated’ Yellow Alert Or Significant Risk of Fraud Attacks
Santa Monica, CA — A California consumer group that has closely followed the career of just-installed Securities Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox has announced a color-coded investor security advisory system that mimics the terror alert system to warn the public of the risk of corporate fraud under lax regulation.
The Foundation For Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said it would work with consumer and investor groups throughout the nation to alert the public to the loosening of SEC regulation and enforcement under the laissez-faire Republican Cox, who has opposed stronger investor regulation. In recent weeks, FTCR has exposed Chris Cox‘s involvement in a massive investment scam that cost retirees and other small investors $130 million.
The public can sign up for alerts and learn more about the system and Cox’s checkered record.
Investors can also watch a comedic video in which a jailed CEO (played by Ally McBeal star Greg Germann) praises Cox’s appointment and discusses the new Chairman’s past.
“The public needs to know that the investors’ watchdog has been a lap dog for Wall Street and even for a convicted swindler,” said FTCR president Jamie Court, the author of Corporateering (Tarcher/Penguin 2004) “Investors should worry. If Cox begins to dismantle the regulatory structure at the SEC investors will be put on ‘Red Alert’ and warned to pull their money out of affected sectors of the American market. If such a warning system had been in place prior to Enron, so many Americans’ investment nest eggs would not have been crushed. If the Senate and the regulator won’t protect the public, it’s up to consumer groups, acting on information from whistleblowers, to do it.”
In raising the alert level to “Yellow” — significant risk of fraud attacks — FTCR explained that Cox had made material misrepresentations to regulators and the Senate and could not be trusted. The consumer group recently wrote the Senate explaining how Cox may have perjured himself in his confirmation hearings. Read the letter.
