Abandoning the standard settlement language would mean the SEC could no longer pick its trial battles carefully, deciding which factual situations could get the agency the most bang for its litigation buck. Instead, it would have to prepare for almost every matter as if a trial were inevitable, because it almost certainly would be.
It’s hard to know how many cases the SEC could resolve each year in this context, but it wouldn’t be 735. It might be 40 or 50. To the extent this happened, the effect would be to fundamentally change the SEC’s mission as a law enforcement agency….
via Defending the SEC’s Neither-Admit-Nor-Deny Policy — Cady Bar the Door.
