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Deputy Director of Division of Investment Management Robert E. Plaze Retiring After Almost 30 Years at SEC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2012-150

Washington, D.C., Aug. 2, 2012 —

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Robert E. Plaze, the Deputy Director of the Division of Investment Management, is retiring from public service at the end of August after almost 30 years at the SEC.

Mr. Plaze has been a key architect of the rules governing investment advisers, investment companies, and private fund advisers. He joined the SEC in 1983 as an attorney in the Division of Investment Management, which oversees the multi-trillion dollar investment management industry, and went on to become a Special Counsel, Assistant Director, Associate Director for Regulatory Policy, and Deputy Director.

“Few people have had as great an impact shaping the regulatory landscape for the benefit of individual investors,” said SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro. “Bob’s keen intellect and passion for investor protection have been central to virtually every significant rule affecting mutual funds and investment advisers for more than a generation."

“Bob has been instrumental in the creation of the regulatory regime for investment advisers and investment companies,” said Norm Champ, Director of the Division of Investment Management. “He has worked in numerous capacities in the division and has had a long and distinguished career working on behalf of investors.”

Mr. Plaze was most recently responsible for rulemaking for money market mutual funds and to implement a Dodd-Frank Act requirement for hedge fund and other private fund advisers to register with the SEC. He also played a critical role in rulemaking to improve mutual fund governance practices, to include fee tables in mutual fund prospectuses, to standardize the method of calculating mutual fund performance used in advertisements, to require mutual funds and investment advisers to adopt compliance programs, to require investment advisers to deliver a plain-English brochure to clients, and to protect pension funds and other investors from “pay to play” practices.

Mr. Plaze said, “It’s been an honor and privilege to work at the Commission.   When I began, I expected to stay a few years, but I found that the issues were so engaging and the work so important that I remained here for nearly three decades.”

Among his many accomplishments, Mr. Plaze is a past recipient of the SEC's Distinguished Service Award, and twice received the agency's Law and Policy Award. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Georgetown University Law Center.

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