CHICAGO, Dec. 16 2004 – LAWFUEL – First for law news — Herbert S. Wander, a corporate governance and securities lawyer with Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman in Chicago, has been named by the Securities and Exchange Commission to co-chair a new SEC advisory committee. The new committee is charged with examining the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on smaller public companies and recommending appropriate SEC regulatory treatment for these companies based on their size.
SEC Chairman William H. Donaldson made the announcement today at a press
conference in Washington. Mr. Wander is a partner in the Corporate Law
Department of the Chicago office of Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman, a national
law firm. He will co-chair the new advisory committee along with James S.
Thyen, CEO of Kimball International, a Jasper, Indiana-based manufacturer.
According to Chairman Donaldson, the committee will be kept rather small,
representing a variety of interests and points of view. Members will be named
to the advisory committee within the next few weeks.
“Smaller businesses are essential to our economy for many reasons,
including their critical role in job creation and innovation,” Mr. Wander
said. “They must be able to access capital markets on reasonable terms, and
their expenses of compliance with the securities laws should not be
disproportionate to the benefits of these regulations. Moreover, a special
task of the committee will be to recommend to the commission how and where to
draw lines to scale regulatory treatment for companies based on size,” he
said. “It may be that the size definition for small businesses should be
raised significantly.”
Mr. Wander is serving his second term as a member of the Legal Advisory
Committee of the New York Stock Exchange Board of Governors and is a member of
its Corporate Governance Subcommittee. He serves as a director and audit
committee member for non-client Telephone and Data Systems, Inc, a $4.5
billion market cap telecommunications company. At Katten Muchin Zavis
Rosenman, he has been lead counsel for numerous major M & A transactions,
including the successful defenses of Commercial Intertech Corp and the hostile
acquisitions of West Point-Pepperell and Safety-Kleen Corp. Mr. Wander is a
past member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the National Association of
Securities Dealers, Inc.
The advisory committee will be known as The Securities and Exchange
Commission Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies. It is to review
internal control reporting, corporate disclosure and reporting requirements,
accounting standards and financial reporting and public offerings at smaller
companies and then consider whether the costs imposed by the current
securities regulatory system are proportionate to the benefits. The committee
is also expected to identify ways that smaller companies can minimize costs
and maximize benefits and facilitate formation of new capital. To view the
SEC’s press release, go to http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2004-174.htm.
Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman (http://www.kmzr.com) is a national, full-
service law firm with offices in the nation’s largest centers of business,
government, finance and technology. The firm’s 600 attorneys in more than 50
practice areas provide timely and cost-effective counsel to clients in
numerous industries. They serve as business advisors and advocates for a wide
range of public and private companies — from entrepreneurial, emerging-
growth, and middle market firms to global Fortune 100 corporations — as well
as government entities, non-profits, and charitable and cultural
organizations.
