Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB” or “Board”) is a quasi-governmental regulatory agency created by Congress in 2002 in response to revelations of widespread financial fraud at major public companies. Since its creation, the agency has experienced significant challenges. Litigants have challenged its constitutionality, the Trump administration challenged its very existence, and legislation was introduced in 2021 to transfer its responsibilities to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).
Proposals to eradicate the Board asserted vague concerns about the redundancy of its responsibilities with those of the SEC, and alleged resultant monetary waste. This Article, written in 2022, provides background on allocation of enforcement authority of public company auditors, then examines normative elements of, and challenges lurking in, systems involving overlapping regulatory authority. The Article theorizes that the SEC-PCAOB enforcement amalgamation works well due to the informal allocation of enforcement responsibility between the agencies, The Article attributes this behavior to the SEC’s regulatory personhood, which neutralizes risks of wasteful and contentious redundancy that might otherwise arise. The Article concludes with recommended improvements to auditor regulation to correct remaining dissonances between the agencies and improve the quality of audits performed on public companies in the U.S.
Publication Title
St. John's Law Review
Recommended Citation
Sarah Williams, Regulatory Personhood: The Elixir for Redundancy between the SEC and the PCAOB, 98 St. John's Law Review 753 (2025).
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons, Securities Law Commons
