By Douglas Gillison

NEW YORK, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s chief regulator said in an address at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should reform rules requiring disclosure of executive compensation and should move to reduce the legal burdens facing smaller companies.

“When the SEC’s disclosure regime has been hijacked to require information unmoored from materiality, investors do not benefit,” Paul Atkins said according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “We need a re-set of these and other SEC disclosure requirements.”

Atkins also said that the burden of complying with SEC regulations was a barrier to raising capital for smaller companies.

“The last comprehensive reform to these thresholds took place in 2005. This dereliction of regulatory upkeep has resulted in a company with a public float of as low as $250 million being subject to the same disclosure requirements as a company that is one hundred times its size.”

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )