Reuters – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that its general counsel, Giovanni Prezioso, will resign in early 2006.
Prezioso, 47, has been in the job for three-and-a-half years. He will return to the private sector, but has not yet accepted another position, said the SEC, which has several key vacancies in its senior ranks under a new chairman.
Prezioso — who has worked under three SEC chairmen — will leave having helped manage a heavy load of SEC rule-making activity in the post-Enron period, the busiest since the investor protection agency was created in the 1930s.
He recently defended the SEC against lawsuits challenging efforts to require more independence among mutual fund directors, to register hedge funds and on other matters.
