NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Senator Phil Gramm will become vice chairman of UBS Warburg, the financial services company said Monday.

The Texas Republican, who is retiring at the end of his current term after 24 years in Congress, will "advise clients on corporate finance issues and strategy," according to a UBS Warburg news release.

"Senator Gramm's experience gained from more than 35 years in academia and government make him uniquely suited to assist our clients to meet the challenges presented by today's business environment," UBS Warburg CEO John Costas said in a release.

Gramm drew criticism for being one of the few legislators who objected to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill, passed this summer and signed into law by President Bush.

The act was the most sweeping reform of corporate accounting since the Great Depression, and it came in response to a series of corporate accounting scandals that began with the collapse of Enron Corp., once the seventh-largest U.S. company. Gramm's wife Wendy was a member of Enron's board of directors and a member of the board's auditing committee.

U.S. shares of UBS (UBS: down $1.68 to $36.00, Research, Estimates) fell in early trading.