The SEC in Bankruptcy

(Excerpt)Since its founding, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") has played an important role as both an advisor and regulator in bankruptcy cases, valuing debtor assets, opining on plans of reorganization, regulating the trading of claims and the disclosure of information, and much else. After a period of relative inactivity following the passage of the Bankruptcy Code (which has a less expansive view of the SEC's role than that of the former Chandler Act whose regime the Code replaced), the SEC's involvement in bankruptcy has intensified in recent years with the ascendancy of equity committees and with the increased use of receiverships and corporate monitors in Ponzi scheme and other cases both inside and outside of chapter 11.In light of these developments, we undertook to sponsor a symposium ("The SEC in Bankruptcy: Past, Present and Future") whose objective would be to sharpen current thinking in this area. The symposium brought together prominent scholars and practitioners to discuss the SEC's past and present involvement with bankruptcy and to suggest approaches for the future. And we are now delighted to present in this issue the fruits of these efforts, a collection of papers from the symposium.