But 13 months in, Clayton’s SEC appears to be giving quality short shrift, at least as measured by the settlements it is reaching. According to a recent, previously unreported study conducted by Urska Velikonja, a professor of law at Georgetown University, the SEC’s monetary punishments plunged 93 percent in the period from October 2017 to March 2018 — the first half of the SEC’s 2018 fiscal year — compared with the amount in the period a year earlier. The total of $102 million was down from $1.4 billion and was the lowest of any similar period for at least the past 12 years. The number of cases in the same period was down by a quarter. That suggests Clayton has refocused the SEC’s lens on either smaller fish or smaller frauds.
