Sidley Taps Former SEC Chief Corporate Governance Counsel Sonia Barros as Partner in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. – Sidley Austin LLP is pleased to announce that Sonia Barros has joined the firm as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. Formerly the Chief Corporate Governance Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Barros will be a member of the firm’s Global Capital Markets group, where she will be the chair of the group’s newly formed Public Company Advisory subgroup focused on advising clients in corporate disclosures and governance matters.
As outgoing Chief Corporate Governance Counsel, Barros is a leading authority on corporate governance matters that involve the agency’s rules and regulations. In addition to forming the Division’s initial corporate governance function, Barros also served as the SEC’s representative to the Corporate Governance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Prior to her role as Chief Corporate Governance Counsel, Barros served as the Assistant Director in the SEC’s Office of Real Estate and Commodities, where she had oversight authority for thousands of transactions and reviews of corporate disclosures, including financial statements, under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In this capacity, Barros also led the SEC’s disclosure review of companies across numerous industries, including REITs, real estate-related finance, real estate marketplace lending, lodging, casinos, commodities, stock exchanges, consulting services, and cryptocurrencies. Her other roles during her tenure with the SEC included Legal Office Chief of the Division’s Office of Risk and Strategy, Special Counsel, Attorney-Advisor for the Office of Health Care and Insurance, and the Office of Chief Counsel’s Shareholder Proposal Task Force. Before joining the SEC, Barros spent nearly a decade in private practice, counseling clients on corporate governance and securities matters.
