Early next month, a yacht with Republican supporters is setting sail around Newport Harbor in a floating welcome home party for former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.
Even before that, Cox made a splash last week with word he’s joining the Costa Mesa office of Boston-based Bingham McCutchen LLP as a partner and shareholder.
Cox, who headed the SEC for President Bush from August 2005 to the change of administration in January, is set to join Bingham on Sept. 1.
In the meantime, a group of local Republicans and others with ties here are hosting the Aug. 6 welcome home party, which doubles as a political fundraiser.
They include Tom Phillips, chairman of the National Conservative Campaign Fund political action committee who has a home in Corona del Mar, former local GOP chairman Tom Fuentes and Colorado developer Chad McWhinney.
At Bingham, Cox joins a handful of other former politicians,ex-governors Pete Wilson of California and Steve Merrill of New Hampshire, and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
Bingham’s plans to expand its Costa Mesa office appealed to Cox, he said.
“This is a global law firm making a big commitment to Orange County,” Cox said.
For now, Bingham is small here with about 20 lawyers. It didn’t qualify for the Business Journal’s 2009 list of the 50 largest law firms here.
James Loss, managing partner of the Costa Mesa office, called Cox a “talented lawyer with unique experience.”
Bingham expects to add more lawyers in Costa Mesa, said Rick Welch, Bing-ham’s managing partner for the Southern California region in Los Angeles.
“We like the market,” he said. “We want to invest in Orange County.”
Cox was said to have looked at a variety of options, including other law firms.
He’s set to practice corporate law, working on mergers and acquisitions and securities matters. His challenge will be to build up clients after years away from the law business.
He also joins as a partner of Bingham Consulting Group LLC, a separate arm that works with companies on government regulation and relations.
Former Gov. Wilson also works for Bingham Consulting in Los Angeles.
Cox said he plans to work with other Bingham offices, including in Washington, D.C., for the firm’s homeland security group.
From 1977 to 1985, Cox was an associate and then partner at the local office of Latham & Watkins LLP. When he left, he was partner-in-charge of the corporate department.
During the Reagan administration, he served as senior associate counsel to the president.
For two decades, Cox represented parts of Newport Beach, Irvine and other areas as a congressman. He held the seat for California’s 48th congressional district from 1985 until his appointment to the SEC.
Cox kept his Newport Beach home while in Washington and said last week he’s in the process of moving back.
“I am excited about coming home,” Cox said.
At the SEC, Cox oversaw the implementation of executive compensation rules, clearer language in SEC filings and technological modernization of the commission.
Much of Cox’s early days at the commission were spent dealing with the issue of backdated stock options.
The case of Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. was the biggest. The company restated several years of financial results with $2.2 billion in charges for misdated options.
The company settled with the SEC for $12 million in 2008.
The SEC also sued Broadcom’s cofounders and other former executives. Those suits are on hold pending criminal trials in the case.
With longstanding ties here, Cox recused himself from the Broadcom case.
Cox came under heavy criticism late in his term amid the 2008 financial meltdown and the case of convicted investment scammer Bernard Madoff.
Critics charged he failed to see the signs that Wall Street was about to implode and that when it did, he was missing in action.
The low point came in June 2008, when the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about the demise of Bear Sterns that described Cox as absent from critical meetings and conference calls during the crisis.
Cox called the story “inaccurate in several respects.”
It “criticized the SEC for not leading a bailout of Bear Stearns,” he said. “That isn’t and shouldn’t be the role of the SEC. It is first and foremost a law enforcement agency.”
Cox called his later days at the SEC “challenging and frustrating.”
The commission’s real power is to mandate disclosure by companies, not to bail out banks, insurers and automakers, he said.
Because of the agency’s law enforcement role, it has to “stand at arm’s length,” Cox said.
One of his last moves was to start a probe of how red flags raised about Madoff over 10 years didn’t result in enforcement action.
The report is due in August, Cox said.
He said he hopes reforms stemming from the probe will be part of his legacy at the commission.
Bingham was “mindful of criticism” about Cox’s final days at the SEC, Welch said.
“But what I found is a level of respect for Chris,” he said.
