In FY 2024, the SEC maintained a strong focus on crypto and off-channel communications, likely for the last time given the impending administration change. It also began to focus on new priorities that could be relevant in the coming year, particularly artificial intelligence. In addition, the decline in new enforcement actions may stem, at least in part, from the SEC’s…
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it filed 583 total enforcement actions in fiscal year 2024 while obtaining orders for $8.2 billion in financial remedies, the highest amount in SEC history. The 583 enforcement actions represent a 26 percent decline in total enforcement actions compared to fiscal year 2023. Of those cases, the Commission filed 431 “stand-alone” actions,…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) levied $5 billion through enforcement actions and barred more than 100 individuals from serving as company directors and officers in fiscal 2023, the agency’s chair Gary Gensler said on Wednesday. Total penalties and other fees levied in the fiscal year that ran through September were down from a record of $6.4 billion in…
The number of securities class action lawsuit filings in the year’s first half was up slightly compared to the number of filings in the first half of 2022, though roughly in line with the long-term average number of half-year securities suit filings. As discussed below, several factors contributed to the number of filings in the first six months of 2023,…
Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the enforcement division, in a speech at the Securities Enforcement Forum on Nov. 15, noted that in the five fiscal years prior to 2022, the commission ordered more than twice as much in disgorgement as it did in penalties. “To me, that ratio is backwards because it means, on a macro level, that the potential…
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it filed 760 total enforcement actions in fiscal year 2022, a 9 percent increase over the prior year. These included 462 new, or “stand alone,” enforcement actions, a 6.5 percent increase over fiscal year 2021; 129 actions against issuers who were allegedly delinquent in making required filings with the SEC; and 169…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) levied $6.4 billion in enforcement actions, including $4 billion in penalties, in fiscal 2022, the agency’s chair Gary Gensler said on Wednesday. The large number of fines, fees and penalties from about 700 enforcement actions marks a record and underscores the Wall Street regulator’s more aggressive stance against corporate wrongdoing under Democratic leadership.…
To elaborate on the “results speak for themselves” point, I would like to summarize some recent statistics I shared with our staff. Starting with the Division of Enforcement, the Commission brought over 700 actions in FY 20, a significant percentage of which were brought after March 15. The Commission obtained financial remedies of more than $4 billion; an amount above…
Due to an increase in the number of enforcement actions resulting from an agency initiative during the year, the number of enforcement actions brought by the SEC against public companies was at the highest level in at least ten years, according to a recent report. The report, entitled “SEC Enforcement Activity: Public Companies and Subsidiaries Fiscal Year 2019 Update,” which…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is still compiling official statistics, but its volume of enforcement actions over the past 12 months shouldn’t be much different from prior fiscal years, said Steven Peikin, co-director of the agency’s Enforcement Division. The SEC typically releases its own enforcement data in the weeks after the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. via SEC Official Tempers…