A disturbingly persistent pattern has emerged in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement cases that involves three key elements: (1) The commission rarely sues individual defendants at large financial institutions, settling instead with the entity only; (2) when it does sue individual defendants, it frequently loses; and (3) the penalties collected by the commission from corporate defendants are declining and, in any event, are modest in proportion to the profits obtained.
via SEC enforcement: What has gone wrong? — CLS Blue Sky Blog [NOTE: This article from Professor John C. Coffee Jr. of Columbia Law School comes from the Beta Release of the CLS Blue Sky Blog, Columbia Law School’s Blog on Corporations and the Capital Markets, which will be officially launching at the end of the month.]
