A circle of relatives commentary introduced the demise however didn’t supply a motive.
Before he were given the highest activity at the SEC, which he described as his lifelong ambition, Mr. Pitt used to be extensively appeared as probably the most country’s principal government on securities legislation. Hired as an SEC team of workers member at age 23, he used to be promoted seven years later to develop into the company’s youngest normal recommend ever.
He due to this fact started a profitable reign right through personal follow, at the world legislation company Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & (*78*) in Washington. Multiple secretaries had been had to lend a hand him juggle the consistent calls for of his shoppers, together with the “Big Five” accounting companies, the New York Stock Exchange, the brokerage company Merrill Lynch and the insurance coverage goliath Lloyd’s of London.
When President George W. Bush nominated him to move the SEC, Mr. Pitt had admirers on each side of the aisle. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, known as him “the Zeus” of the securities field. The Senate confirmed him in early August 2001 in a routine voice vote.
Six weeks later, Mr. Pitt was praised for responding quickly and calmly to the financial effects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which ruptured communications links on Wall Street and forced a temporary closing of securities markets. A day after the attacks, he took a train to a still-smoldering New York for talks with Wall Street leaders and representatives of telecommunications providers.
Mr. Pitt, a Republican, was eager to differentiate himself from his Democratic predecessor, Arthur Levitt, a President Bill Clinton appointee who led the SEC for nearly eight years and sometimes clashed with Republicans demanding deregulation of financial markets.
Mr. Pitt wanted the agency to take a less confrontational approach to regulation and rulemaking. “Somewhere along the way, accountants became afraid to talk to the SEC, and the SEC appeared to be unwilling to listen to the profession,” he mentioned in an October 2001 speech. “Those days are ended.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, he promised to make the SEC “a kinder, gentler place for everyone.”
Meanwhile, the energy conglomerate Enron — previously a darling of Wall Street — was beginning its spectacular collapse into bankruptcy amid disclosures that it had falsified its accounts, a scandal that soon engulfed and destroyed Enron’s auditor, Arthur Andersen.
Enron’s fall and other accounting scandals of the era made Mr. Pitt’s emphasis on friendly chats and self-regulation seem naive and suspect. Though Mr. Pitt and his supporters insisted he was always ready to crack down on abuses, he was stuck with the wrong image as business icons crumbled, greed could no longer be seen as even remotely good, and politicians wanted to show that they were tough on fraud.
Mr. Pitt was especially vulnerable to criticism because he had spent 23 years as a private lawyer, not just representing securities and accounting firms but also Ivan Boesky. He helped the stock speculator negotiate with investigators to minimize his prison time and fines for insider trading. Boesky agreed to pay a $100 million fine and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Giving more ammunition to critics, Mr. Pitt suggested that his position as SEC chairman should be elevated to Cabinet rank and that his pay should be increased accordingly.
Meanwhile, Mr. Pitt strove to display his tougher side and ordered top executives to certify the accuracy of their financial statements, but his political backing dwindled. In October 2002, his support from the White House collapsed amid criticism of his decision to push William Webster, a former director of the CIA and FBI, as a candidate to head a new accounting-oversight board, even though Webster had chaired the audit committee of a company facing fraud accusations.
In early November 2002, Mr. Pitt wrote a resignation letter saying “the turmoil surrounding my chairmanship” was making it hard for the SEC to do its work. He remained in the post for several more months before the Bush administration tapped a successor, William H. Donaldson, a founder of the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and chief executive of the health-care giant Aetna.
Cynthia A. Glassman, a Republican who served as an SEC commissioner while Mr. Pitt was chairman, said it was a misperception that he was soft on accounting firms and business in general. She said he vigorously carried out his SEC duties but wasn’t fully attuned to political winds. “He wasn’t a political creature,” she said.
Harvey Lloyd Pitt was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 28, 1945. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father, who left school around the sixth grade, worked for the Waldbaum’s grocery stores, first as a delicatessen worker and later as a manager. (The Pitt family described him as “the best lox cutter in the Western Hemisphere.”) His mother was a seamstress.
He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Brooklyn College in 1965 and got a scholarship to study law at St. John’s University in Queens, where he graduated three years later.
After an initial plan to focus on labor law, he shifted to securities law “almost by a fluke,” he said in an oral history with the SEC Historical Society. The switch came when he represented St. John’s at a national moot court competition. Facing a team from Columbia University, he made arguments in a case involving people who had lost money because of improperly audited accounts, something that would arise in real life when Enron crashed.
Though Mr. Pitt’s team didn’t win the competition, his mastery of the arcane subject matter so impressed a representative of the SEC that he was invited to apply for a job at the agency. He joined the general counsel’s office and swiftly received promotions.
His first marriage, to Phyllis Yagerman, ended in divorce. In 1984, he married Sarah “Saree” Ruffin. In addition to his wife, survivors include two children from his first marriage, Emily Pitt and Jonathan Pitt; two children from his second marriage, Robert Pitt and Sara “Sally” Pitt Plowden; a sister; and three grandchildren.
Mr. Pitt spent the past two decades as chief executive of Kalorama Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm focused on regulatory compliance and corporate governance. He also contributed opinion essays to the Wall Street Journal.
Shortly after Mr. Pitt resigned from the SEC in 2002, a law firm partner at Fried Frank told the New York Times there was a “wonderful paradox” in his former colleague having left a thriving practice to fulfill his ambition as chair of the watchdog agency.
“If Harvey had stayed at Fried Frank through the last year,” the partner said, “he would have had the greatest practice in the world because every troubled company from Enron down would have wanted him to represent them.”