Alan Beller, Former Director of SEC Division of Corporation Finance, Returns to Cleary Gottlieb

International law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP announced today that Alan Beller, former Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Senior Counselor to the Commission, will return to the firm as a partner this summer. He will be based in the firm’s New York office and will focus on securities, corporate governance and other corporate law matters.

Firm Managing Partner Mark Walker said, “Cleary Gottlieb is a leading advisor to major corporations and financial institutions with respect to complex securities and corporate governance matters. Alan’s accomplishments and experience at the Commission, combined with his expertise and long experience as a practitioner, will be invaluable to our clients. Alan’s return follows the announcement in April of the return to the firm of Giovanni Prezioso, former General Counsel of the Commission. These developments add to our already formidable depth and strength in this important area of our practice and highlight our commitment to it.”

Mr. Beller, 56, served as Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Counselor to the Commission from January 2002 to February 2006. During his four-year tenure, Mr. Beller led the Division in producing the most far-reaching corporate governance, financial disclosure and securities offering reforms in Commission history. Upon the announcement of Mr. Beller’s decision to leave the Commission, Chairman Christopher Cox commented that Mr. Beller “will be recognized as one of the giants of the SEC of all time.”

Mr. Beller has been credited by the Commission for the following accomplishments:

• Drafting Commission rules that produced the most significant securities offering reforms in decades.
• Meeting the deadlines for rulemaking prescribed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which required the adoption of more than 15 separate rules prepared by the Division, including those requiring CEOs and CFOs to certify the accuracy and completeness of company reports.
• Leading Commission efforts relating to New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq director independence and corporate governance listing standards.
• Leading the effort to produce the first comprehensive Commission rules for asset-backed securities registration and disclosure.
• Leading the efforts to draft Commission rules that implemented a real-time current disclosure system for material events.
• Proposing rules for improved disclosure of executive compensation.
• Playing an instrumental role in establishing the Commission’s Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies.
• Helping to foster “unprecedented cooperation” between the Division of Corporation Finance and the Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant to implement and refine requirements relating to internal controls over financial reporting.

Mr. Beller commented, “My time at the Commission was enriching and exceptionally satisfying. I am honored that I had the privilege to serve under Chairman Cox and his two predecessors, William Donaldson and Harvey Pitt, as well as the Commissioners, and am equally grateful for the opportunity to work with the talented public servants of the Division of Corporation Finance and throughout the Commission. I am very much looking forward to rejoining my former partners at Cleary Gottlieb and to embarking on this next exciting phase of my career. Cleary Gottlieb provides a superb platform for advising clients and assisting colleagues in the most challenging and important securities, corporate governance and other corporate matters.”

Before joining the Commission, Mr. Beller was based in Cleary Gottlieb’s New York office and also served in the firm’s Paris and Tokyo offices. He joined the firm as an associate in 1976 and became a partner in 1984. Over the course of Mr. Beller’s 25 years at the firm, he played a leading role in a wide variety of international and U.S. domestic securities, corporate and derivatives transactional and advisory assignments.

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For further information, you can contact Richard Lincer at +1 212 225 2560 (New York).

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About Cleary Gottlieb’s Securities and Corporate Governance Practice

Counseling corporate officers and directors regarding difficult issues of corporate governance, disclosure and other corporate matters has been a core part of Cleary Gottlieb’s work for years. Our team includes lawyers drawn from diverse practice areas and throughout the world. Many of our lawyers have served in prominent positions in the U.S. government or as federal prosecutors. Alan Beller, a former Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, joins former General Counsel of the SEC— Giovanni Prezioso—at the firm.

Our expertise in the law of the world’s major financial centers gives us unique insights into the way U.S. reforms affect overseas companies and how the reforms interact with evolving home-country rules and practice. Several of our lawyers, including Alan Beller when he was at the firm, co-authored the leading treatise on international securities, “U.S. Regulations of the International Securities and Derivatives Markets” (2006). Firm lawyers also co-authored the leading treatise “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: Analysis and Practice” (2003).

About Cleary Gottlieb

Founded in 1946 by lawyers committed to legal excellence, internationalism and diversity, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP is a leading international law firm with approximately 850 lawyers around the world. The firm was the top Global Financial Industry M&A Legal Advisor in 2005, according to Bloomberg. In 2005, for the second year in a row, legal publisher Chambers and Partners named Cleary Gottlieb the Western Europe Competition/Antitrust Law Firm of the Year, and, also for the second consecutive year, LatinFinance rated Cleary Gottlieb as Best International Financial Law Firm. Additionally, International Tax Review named Cleary Gottlieb U.S. Tax Firm of the Year in Europe and Juve recognized the firm as German Law Firm of the Year. Most recently, Chambers USA 2006 ranked the firm’s Capital Markets practice in the top tier nationwide. Cleary Gottlieb has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Paris, Brussels, London, Moscow, Frankfurt, Cologne, Rome, Milan, Hong Kong and Beijing.