JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired Stephen Cutler, the former chief of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, as its top legal officer.Cutler, 45, left the SEC last year after playing a central role in the agency's investigations into historic corporate fraud and trading abuses. Since leaving the SEC, Cutler has been working at Washington-based Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he is a partner and co-chairs the securities practice. Cutler will begin working at the bank in February as its executive vice president and general counsel.
The appointment makes Cutler the third former SEC enforcement chief on Wall Street, following a path cleared by former government regulators, including Deutsche Bank AG General Counsel Richard Walker and Gary Lynch, the top lawyer at Morgan Stanley.
Separately, the director of the SEC’s Office of Risk Assessment, Charles Fishkin, will leave the agency in early 2007 to take a risk management position with New York-based asset management firm AllianceBernstein LP.
Fishkin, 46, who has commuted weekly from Boston since joining the SEC, will remain with the agency for a transition period. He assumed his position in July 2004, when former SEC Chairman William Donaldson appointed him to coordinate risk management activities across the agency. The office was created under Fishkin’s leadership with the goal of helping the SEC better anticipate and address emerging issues and potential problems in the securities markets -- including risks associated with new products and the increasing complexity of financial instruments and strategies.
Before joining the agency, Fishkin had spent 20 years in the private sector in financial services.
