Hill News – Gary Aguirre, the whistle-blower whose charges of lax and politicized enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have sparked the interest of three Senate committees,sued the regulator Friday to secure the public release of records he says will prove his case.
Citing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules, Aguirre’s complaint seeks information on the SEC’s probe of alleged insider trading at hedge fund Pequot Capital Management, an account that he had worked on during his employment. Aguirre has told members and aides on the Senate Finance, Banking and Judiciary committees that the SEC fired him only after blocking his bid to take testimony from Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who Aguirre believed was tied to misdeeds at Pequot.
While the unbridled, phenomenal growth of hedge funds, pools of private equity that managers use to make creative and occasionally risky stock trades, has concerned lawmakers for some time, last month’s court decision overturning the SEC’s hedge-fund registration rule has galvanized the call for congressional oversight. Within days after that ruling, Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, introduced a bill restoring the SEC’s authority to regulate hedge funds.
