Major U.S. CEOs complained about regulatory burdens in the post-Enron environment at a high-profile conference on regulation and the legal system, while an investor advocate warned on Tuesday that business leaders should not lose sight of what matters to investors.
"We can't forget where we were five years ago," Ann Yerger, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, said at the conference hosted by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. "There was a remarkable crisis of confidence ... I fear we're sort of losing touch with that period of time."
Yerger was on a panel at the conference with Paulson, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox and others. Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to conference participants on Monday night.
The gathering marked another effort -- this one supported by the Bush administration -- to focus public attention on the U.S. business community's broad dissatisfaction with government oversight and the legal system.
Corporate leaders have been trying to build support for claims that excessive regulation and litigation are making American capital markets less competitive internationally, although some critics question the data being cited.
The Treasury Department has no immediate timetable for producing concrete findings from the conference, Treasury Under Secretary Robert Steel told reporters afterward.
As an example of possible follow-ups to the conference, Steel said Treasury might explore comments by several participants that corporate audit committees are mired in meaningless process due to recent regulatory reforms.
He said that if "smart people like that raise that issue, we should think about that and discuss it."
At the conference, Yerger said Enron-era scandals revealed pervasive failures in boardrooms and among auditors.
The 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley accounting and corporate governance reforms were targeted at such problems, she said, expressing concern about the scope of recent complaints.
"It's very important that we not lose sight of investors," said Yerger, whose group represents major pension funds.
Buffett, one of the world's richest men, said corporate America did not shine during the 1990s and is now working through the regulatory crackdown that followed. "It has no choice but to digest what's being served up," he added.
One result is that managers and directors are increasingly consumed by regulatory process, said Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
"We are doing a lot of things that I regard as unnecessary," he said. "It has changed the complexion of things that go on in our boardroom ... Hours and hours get spent on process.
"The process that's gone through detracts from more important issues that a board should be looking at."
Sarbanes-Oxley has become a target for business gripes about regulation and the focus of a broader critique that blames government oversight and the legal system generally for a perceived decline in Wall Street's fortunes in winning listings versus competing markets in Europe and Asia.
New York Stock Exchange parent NYSE Group CEO John Thain cited figures to show that U.S. markets are luring fewer initial public stock offerings from abroad.
But former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt questioned the data.
"I don't think we really are losing listings," he said.
General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt questioned the role of independent auditors and said their "judgments are no longer necessarily held in high regard."
Paulson said regulatory scrutiny of corporate behavior may have grown so excessive that it threatens market competitiveness. Sarbanes-Oxley has produced some positive results, but it is time to reassess them, he said.