John Stark, former chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, which monitors, among other things, online trading and investment activity, called the numbers “shocking” and predicts an increase in insider trading while enforcement staff is on furlough.
“There will absolutely be people on Wall Street, and off of Wall Street, who believe they may be able to get away with something because the cop is simply not on the beat,” Stark said. “I was there during a shutdown [in November and December of 1995] but the SEC was able to find funding to pay people’s salaries, so people stayed at work. This is a dramatic difference from that.”
via US government shutdown 2019 makes insider trading a bigger temptation — Quartz.
