- Alex Oh stepped down after less than a week on the job as the SEC’s director of enforcement.
- Progressive and ethics groups have taken issue with Oh’s work for Exxon and other big businesses.
- On Monday, a judge faulted Exxon’s legal tactics in a human-rights lawsuit, and singled out Oh.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
The SEC’s top Wall Street cop, the first woman of color to hold the job, just resigned after less than a week in the role. Progressive groups that have been pressuring the Biden administration not to hire certain corporate lawyers are thrilled by the news.
Alex Oh, an ex-prosecutor and longtime lawyer at the elite firm Paul Weiss, was appointed to be the SEC’s enforcement director last Thursday. She was the first big hire made by the agency’s chair, Gary Gensler.
But on Wednesday evening, the SEC said Oh had resigned, citing “personal reasons.” In her resignation letter, Oh wrote that a recent “development” in a case she worked on at Paul Weiss would become an “unwelcome distraction” if she were to remain in her role at the SEC.
Oh appeared to be referring to a lawsuit brought two decades ago by Indonesian citizens who want to make Exxon Mobil Corp. pay for alleged human-rights abuses carried out by the oil giant’s security personnel in Indonesia. Earlier this week, a judge overseeing the Exxon case ordered Oh’s law firm to account for why they falsely accused her adversaries of inappropriate conduct during a videotaped deposition.
Oh had not previously made SEC chairman Gary Gensler aware of the risk that the judge could find fault with her conduct in the case, according to a source familiar with the circumstances of Oh’s resignation who didn’t have permission to share the information.
Behind the scenes, progressives who opposed Oh’s appointment had also pressured the agency to drop her. They specifically took issue with the work Oh did at Paul Weiss. While the firm has long had close ties to Democrats, it has also been one of Exxon’s go-to law firms for years, helping squelch climate-change lawsuits brought by cities and regulators. Activist groups have said lawyers who do important work for big corporations can’t be trusted to effectively police their former clients while in government.
Dennis Kelleher, who leads the group Better Markets, called Oh’s resignation an “opportunity” for the SEC to hire someone with different qualifications. He encouraged the Biden administration to look to the ranks of active prosecutors and state and federal securities regulators for the SEC’s next enforcement director.
“That’s what the American people deserve, not yet another Wall Street defense lawyer with years, if not decades, of excusing and defending private sector clients accused of breaking the law, often repeatedly and egregiously,” Kelleher said in a statement.
It’s unclear what exactly went down behind the scenes, but Oh’s resignation appears to be over her involvement in the Exxon human rights case. The case has been pending for two decades, bogged down by appeals and complexity.
In February, lawyers from Cohen Milstein, which is representing the Indonesians, accused Exxon’s lawyers of breaking court rules, saying that one of its witnesses appeared to have been reading from a script for parts of his deposition and wouldn’t give straight answers to questions. They also said one of Exxon’s attorneys, who wasn’t named, falsely accused them of “screaming,” “yelling” and “shouting” during the deposition.
On Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, DC told Exxon’s lawyers to explain why they shouldn’t be punished for calling their adversaries “unhinged” despite a lack of evidence. The judge didn’t specify who made the remark, but ordered that a copy of the order be sent to Oh specifically. He also ordered an Exxon witness to be deposed again.
The judge’s full decision is still under seal, but he released a public summary.
The Revolving Door Project was one of the groups that criticized Oh’s selection by Gensler. Jeff Hauser, the group’s leader, told Insider that Wall Street doesn’t have a monopoly on smart lawyers with the skills and savvy to fill Oh’s position.
“She is not a dedicated public servant,” Hauser said of Oh. “She is someone who will extremely zealously protect corporate interests.”
Last fall, a group of law students at elite universities launched a campaign to boycott Paul Weiss over its representation of Exxon in climate change-related cases. Activists involved in that effort also hailed Oh’s departure from the SEC.
“Lawyers choose their clients,” said Tim Hirschel-Burns of the group Law Students for Climate Accountability. “Alex Oh and other partners at Paul Weiss made the choice to prop up a firm that has done immense harm to the climate and to communities around the world.”
It’s not clear what Oh’s next move will be. Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, said in a statement that the firm couldn’t comment on specifics, but called Oh “a person of the utmost integrity and a consummate professional, with a strong ethical code.”
Oh’s role at the SEC is being filled by Melissa Hodgman on an interim basis.
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