A shareholder activist has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to open an enforcement investigation of Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC) for not promptly notifying him of its efforts to block a proposal he wants to put to a shareholder vote.

Conservative pundit Steven Milloy, who co-manages the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a Potomac, Md., mutual fund, sought to offer a “Sarbanes-Oxley Right-to-Know” resolution at Bear Stearns’ annual meeting this year. Milloy said he’s concerned the law may be harming U.S. investment-banking business and his resolution calls for Bear Stearns to report this fall on the impact of the 2002 law.

Bear Stearns sought to exclude the resolution and submitted a written “no-action” request to SEC staffers on Dec. 20 to that effect. Milloy said he didn’t receive the letter until asking for it Wednesday, even though the correspondence showed he’d been sent a copy.

Milloy said the 28-day delay violates U.S. laws requiring such letters be sent simultaneously to the SEC and to the shareholder making the proposal. He said an outside lawyer for Bear Stearns told him the bank is “looking into why it fell through the cracks.”

[1] MarketWatch: Shareholder activist seeks SEC inquiry into Bear Stearns