New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is pushing back on the prospect that U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump’s transition team is considering ways to dismantle state consumer and investor protection statutes.
“I am deeply troubled by reports that the presidential transition team is considering ways to eviscerate some of the most basic consumer and investor protection laws in the country,” says Schneiderman in a statement issued on Thursday, expressing his concern about the possible threat to these laws, also known as Blue Sky laws.
Law enforcement use these laws every day “to root out the worst types of fraud, corruption and abuse on Wall Street and across major industries,” Schneiderman says, adding that they represent, “investors’ first line of defence against exploitation, particularly when retail and institutional investor dollars are in the hands of increasingly complex and opaque financial institutions.
“The investigations and prosecutions made possible by state anti-fraud statutes are among the most effective deterrents of misconduct and regularly lead to critical updates to federal securities laws and enforcement practices of consumer protection laws,” Schneiderman says, arguing that it is essential to maintain these laws. “Any attempt to gut these consumer and investor protections would severely undercut state police powers and only embolden those who seek to defraud and exploit everyday Americans.”