Cox’ Tarnished Legacy

When Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox resigned his post effective noon Tuesday, he ended a beleaguered 3 1/2-year tenure marred by criticism from lawmakers, investors, and his own inspector general over the SEC’s failure to notice the Madoff Ponzi scheme or avert the collapses of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Bloomberg has an in depth look at the SEC reign of the 56-year-old Cox—under whom the SEC in 2008 extracted $1 billion in fines and illegal profits from companies and individuals, down from $1.6 billion in 2007 and more than $3 billion each of the three years before that.