The SEC reports that John J. Cross III, who, since 2012 served as the first director of the office of municipal securities, will leave the agency in November. Cross is “expected to rejoin the Office of Tax Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department,” according to the SEC.
The office of municipal securities was established under the Dodd-Frank Act to oversee the municipal securities market, by administering the commission’s rules for the municipal securities market and by overseeing rulemaking of the municipal securities rulemaking board, a self-regulatory organization. The office also advises the commission on policy matters, enforcement, current market issues, and such other issues as municipal disclosure and municipal market structure initiatives.
As director, Cross was “instrumental” in building the office “into a standalone office staffed by a team of municipal securities experts,” according to the SEC’s statement. He also “played a leading role on a final rule-making project for municipal advisor registration under the Dodd-Frank Act,” as well as leading “efforts to implement the municipal advisor registration regime, including providing guidance to market participants and participating in the legal review process for municipal advisor registrations,” officials say.
“John’s efforts to promote investor protection and structural integrity in the municipal securities market and his contributions to building a top-notch office will help us continue to carry out our mission in this important area,” SEC Chair Mary Jo White says in a prepared statement.
Cross is a municipal-finance, public-policy veteran. From 2006 to 2012, he served as associate tax legislative counsel in the office of tax policy at the U.S. Treasury Department, where “he had significant responsibility for legislative, regulatory, and budgetary tax matters affecting municipal bonds, including significant roles in that agency’s response to municipal bond market challenges in the 2008 financial crisis and the implementation of tax incentives for municipal bonds in the 2009 Recovery Act,” according to the SEC.
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