A chorus of former directors of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management is singing the blues about the current state of mutual fund regulation, but doubt that the agency will change its tune any time soon, Investment News reports. Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, SEC alumni Kathryn McGrath, Marianne Smythe, Barry Barbash and Paul Roye all attacked the current state of regulation and provided doomsday scenarios for the mutual fund industry. McGrath, who is now a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, joined her fellow former SECers in proposing a unified fee structure for mutual fund companies, so that the funds could avoid having to approve management-companies annually, a task they felt mutual fund boards are "ill equipped" to tackle. Smythe, a partner at the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, feared that too much regulation may result in less competition as funds will opt for the lighter regulatory environment of hedge funds, for example. The overregulation, said Barry Barbash, a partner with the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, could also force brokerages firms that sell mutual funds out of business, which will give investors fewer choices.