On December 17, President-elect Barack Obama announced that Mary L. Schapiro will be the next SEC Chairman to replace current Chairman Christopher Cox. At the same time, the President-elect announced the selection of Gary Gensler as the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Dan Tarullo as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board. All of these positions will be subject to Senate confirmation. For an analysis of what these appointments might signal in terms of the Obama Administration’s positions on regulation of the financial industry, see Orrick Client Alert.