SEC Chief Faces New Demands to Step Down

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey L. Pitt found himself embroiled in a new controversy, on reports that he failed to share with fellow commissioners potentially inflammatory information about the man Pitt picked to head the nation’s new accounting-oversight board.

William H. Webster, whom the SEC approved by a 3-2 vote on Oct. 25 to lead the accounting board, had told Pitt before the vote that he had been the audit-committee chairman of a small technology company that has been sued by shareholders for fraud. Pitt did not inform the other four commissioners.

The revelations led to new calls for Pitt’s resignation by congressional Democrats, who say he has stumbled badly in his first year as the nation’s top securities cop.