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Harvey Pitt, a authorized wunderkind who lasted simply 18 months as chairman of the Securities and Change Fee beneath President George W. Bush, died on Tuesday in Washington. He was 78.
His loss of life, in a hospital, got here after a sudden sickness, based on his household, which didn’t specify the ailment.
Mr. Pitt’s profession had three consecutive legs, any certainly one of which alone may need been the top on a lesser résumé. He started his profession on the S.E.C. and was promoted to basic counsel at age 30, the youngest ever to attain that rank. After solely three years, he left to characterize company purchasers for the highly effective legislation agency Fried Frank. There, rising to managing associate within the agency’s Washington workplace, he helped it change into massively worthwhile.
He returned to the S.E.C. as chairman in 2001, after crusing by a unanimous affirmation vote by which Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, known as him “the Zeus of the sector.” Not lengthy after, Mr. Pitt turned considerably of a family identify for overseeing the swift reopening of U.S. inventory exchanges after the assaults of Sept. 11, 2001.
His recognition dipped, nonetheless, amid a sequence of company accounting scandals — most famously on the power big Enron — that drew renewed consideration to his prior company work. Representatives of each events questioned his curiosity in investigating private-sector wrongdoing.
The ultimate straw got here when it emerged that he had failed to inform the White Home or his fellow S.E.C. commissioners that an accounting board chairman he championed had headed the audit committee of an organization accused of fraud. Underneath strain, Mr. Pitt resigned on election evening 2002.
Born on Feb. 28, 1945 in Brooklyn, Harvey Lloyd Pitt was the kid of Morris and Sara Pitt. His father was a vp of the Waldbaum’s grocery store chain; his mom was a homemaker.
Harvey, a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who was gutted when the crew left for the West Coast, his household mentioned, went on to earn levels from Brooklyn Faculty and St. John’s College earlier than becoming a member of the S.E.C. straight out of school. It was the one job he had ever wished.
In 1978, with a rising household, he went into non-public observe, the place he represented a number of the identical folks his group had been charged with regulating. His purchasers included Ivan Boesky, who pleaded responsible to insider buying and selling throughout the junk bond scandal of the late Nineteen Eighties, and scores of economic companies.
Such was his fame that when Mr. Pitt’s personal agency landed in a minor authorized spat, his hiring of the then-smaller rival agency Williams & Connolly made waves.
“It was notable that if Harvey Pitt had confidence in us, others would simply comply with, and so they did,” mentioned Brendan Sullivan, a Williams & Connolly senior associate.
At his affirmation listening to, Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, supplied a tweak on a music lyric. “I overlook what the outdated music of the Sixties was,” he mentioned, “however Harvey Pitt has seen it from either side.”
Contained in the fee, he was indefatigable, mentioned Cynthia Glassman, a former commissioner. After the group acquired Blackberry smartphones for the primary time, she mentioned, Mr. Pitt turned “huge on emails — particularly in the midst of the evening.”
He took a lighter strategy to S.E.C. enforcement than did his predecessors, telling Congress that he would “restore relationships which have been harmed previously.” That perspective proved untenable within the wake of Enron and different scandals.
“Your selection of phrases sends the mistaken message to auditors, to the S.E.C. workers and to the investing public,” Rep. John Dingell wrote to Mr. Pitt a couple of weeks after Enron’s collapse.
Morale within the company dropped precipitously throughout Mr. Pitt’s tenure, and a slew of senior workers departed.
His fall in stature was summarized by a New York Instances headline on the day in 2003 that his successor, William H. Donaldson, was confirmed: “S.E.C. Selection Says He’s No Harvey Pitt.”
However associates and former colleagues mentioned Mr. Pitt had been unjustly criticized. The previous S.E.C. basic counsel David Becker recalled being on the cellphone with Mr. Pitt when the actual property developer Donald J. Trump known as to complain about Trump corporations being investigated for fraud.
“Harvey politely defined that he was not ready to assist, since he had added to the division’s proposal the very fraud allegation about which Trump was calling to complain,” Mr. Becker mentioned.
Mr. Pitt’s first marriage, to Phyllis Kay, resulted in divorce in 1981. He married Saree Ruffin in 1984. He’s survived by his spouse; two daughters, Emily Pitt and Sally Pitt Plowden; two sons, Jonathan and Rob; and three grandchildren.
Within the years that adopted his S.E.C. chairmanship, Mr. Pitt hardly receded from public view. He continued to weigh in on regulatory points, sometimes contributing opinion articles to The Wall Avenue Journal.
His most up-to-date column took a pointy view of latest proposed S.E.C. guidelines on non-public funding funds.
“Too usually, regulatory calls for make it tough or inconceivable for brand new entrants to achieve traction in an trade,” Mr. Pitt wrote. “There’s usually no voice on the desk representing the pursuits of that section of the trade.”
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