The current SEC is not only proposing a wide array of rules, but it's also moving swiftly from rule proposal to adoption, he said.
"And in doing so, they are conspicuously not giving much attention or taking into account many of the concerns or objections or comments that have been raised by the fund industry as a whole," Mr. Senderowicz said. "So generally speaking, you have a much more adversarial relationship between the SEC and the fund industry than you have had for many years."
In addition to rule-making, the SEC's approach also plays out in the realm of enforcement and inspections, he said.
"They have begun the process of moving from rule adoption to sweep inspection pretty much before the figurative ink is dry on the newly effective rule," Mr. Senderowicz said.
He pointed to a rule "called the adviser marketing rule where the SEC basically started doing a sweep exam of advisers in terms of how they're complying with the rule within about a month of the rule coming into effect," which he said was "an extraordinary break from precedent."
Another thing to note about the rule-making process is that the SEC, particularly in its division of investment management, has "a pretty strong academic bent to their leadership," Mr. Senderowicz said, adding in the past it was much more oriented toward people with significant industry experience.
While in the past it could take quite a while for "fringe ideas" raised in academic pieces to appear on the SEC's agenda "now there is more of an express train from academia to potential rule proposal and adoption that didn't exist before," the attorney said.
Most of the SEC's proposals, inspections and potential enforcement aren't targeted specifically at the ETF industry, Mr. Senderowicz said.
"But the ETF industry is going to be heavily effected by a whole slew of these initiatives just by virtue of being downstream of these larger concerns that the SEC is attempting to address," he said.
Another panelist, J. Stephen Feinour Jr., a partner at Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, said for all the rule-making that's occurring, "I always ask myself, 'what is the problem that we're solving for here.'"
"And I think for a lot of this recent rule-making, there are legitimate questions as to whether there are real problems to solve for," Mr. Feinour said.
