Randall Fons, Head of the SEC’S Central Regional Office, To Leave the Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2006-33
Washington, D.C., March 7, 2006 — Randall J. Fons, Regional Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Central Regional Office, has announced that he will leave the Commission in late March to become a partner in the Denver office of the law firm of Morrison & Foerster.
Mr. Fons, 43, became the Regional Director of the Central Regional Office in August 2000. In this position he has been responsible for managing the enforcement and examination programs in Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. Previously, Mr. Fons served as the Regional Director of the SEC’s Southeast Regional Office, in Miami, from 1997 to 2000.
Under his leadership, the staff of the Central Regional Office brought a number of high profile enforcement actions including the Commission’s financial fraud case against Qwest Communications, Intl., market timing and late-trading cases against Janus and Invesco, market manipulation cases, and cases against broker-dealers and investment advisers. In Miami, Mr. Fons oversaw actions including the City of Miami municipal fraud case, the W.R. Grace financial fraud case, the PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditor independence case and the Wheat, First Securities, Inc. case.
In both regional offices, he also maintained an effective examination program that both detected compliance deficiencies and led to their correction.
“For the past eighteen years, Randy has served the Commission and investors with total commitment, great enthusiasm and uncompromising principles,” SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said. “Our markets, and most importantly, America’s investors, are better off because of his fine work. On behalf of the Commission, I thank Randy for his extraordinary service, his outstanding leadership, and his exceptionally high standards of professionalism. He has served our nation well.”
SEC Director of Enforcement Linda Thomsen stated, “The ability of the SEC to enforce the securities laws and to protect investors derives from the dedicated efforts of people like Randy Fons. He has made a significant contribution to the work of the Commission during his almost two decades of service. His wise counsel has been of great benefit to the SEC and to its senior staff, including myself. I will miss him personally as well as professionally.”
Lori Richards, Director of the Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations said, “Randy helped ensure that investors could have confidence in market professionals in the region, by making certain — through on-site examinations – that brokers, funds and advisers were complying with the federal securities laws. In so doing, he provided an enormous service to investors in the region.”
Mr. Fons said, “I could not be more proud to have been part of the staff and to work with the most dedicated and talented group of individuals I have ever known. The agency truly has, as its fundamental mission, the protection of the American investor. Being a part of that over the past years has been a privilege I will not forget.”
Mr. Fons started his career at the SEC in 1988 in the Commission’s Chicago Office, where he held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in the office’s enforcement program, including Branch Chief, Senior Trial Counsel, Assistant Regional Director and Associate Regional Director. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1984 with a Bachelor of Business Administration — Accounting degree. He graduated in 1987 from the University of Colorado School of Law. After graduation, Fons was a law clerk to the Presiding Judge at the Wisconsin State Court of Appeals. In 1999, SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt presented Randy the Distinguished Service Award, the Commission’s highest honor, and the Capital Markets Award.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006-33.htm
