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Columns By Ex-SEC Enforcement Counsel Bruce Carton

Bruce Carton is a former senior counsel in the SEC's Division of Enforcement. Previously vice president of Securities Class Action Services group at Institutional Investor Services (ISS, now RiskMetrics), he is also a former securities litigation partner with one of the world’s largest law firms. The editor of Securities Docket, Carton also hosts a Compliance Week blog called “Enforcement Action.”

  Title & Description Date Type of Article
1. DoJ and SEC Go All Out to Stop Fraud
When Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer was recently asked to comment on enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 2009, he minced no words: “One can say without exaggeration that this past year was probably the most dynamic single year in the more than 30 years since the FCPA was enacted.”
 By Bruce Carton
03/09/10 Columns & Editorials
2. Details Emerge on SEC Office of Market Intelligence
One of the first tools that the Securities Exchange Commission launched after it ushered itself into the Internet era in the mid-1990s was the “Enforcement Complaint Center,” a fancy name for an e-mail box at the SEC where the public could send tips. The Enforcement Complaint Center initially received only about 20 complaints per day, but that number snowballed through the years. Today it’s not uncommon for the ECC to receive up to 1,000 e-mail tips per day.
 By Bruce Carton
02/09/10 Columns & Editorials
3. Dissecting the Investor Protection Act
In December the U.S. House of Representatives passed a key financial reform bill, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, which would provide sweeping new oversight of the financial sector. The bill, which passed the House narrowly and without a single Republican vote, includes new regulations in a host of areas of interest to Compliance Week readers, such as exempting certain filers from compliance with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It also creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate financial products sold to the public, and a Financial Stability Council to identify and regulate particularly risky financial firms.
 By Bruce Carton
01/12/10 Compliance Week Coverage
4. Deceptive, and Elusive, Metrics for SEC Enforcement
For many years, Securities and Exchange Commission statements about the performance of its Enforcement Division have centered on the number of enforcement actions brought during each fiscal year. At the end of fiscal 2008, for example, the SEC issued a press release announcing that the 671 enforcement actions brought that year were the second-highest number of enforcement actions in agency history. The volume of actions brought, the SEC implied, resulted from “the dedicated enforcement staff … working around the clock to investigate and punish wrongdoing.”
 By Bruce Carton
12/08/09 Columns & Editorials
5. Lessons Taken From SEC Hedge Fund Enforcement
When the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its massive insider-trading bust against Galleon Management last month, SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami gave a warning: “It would be wise for investment advisers and corporate executives to closely look at today’s case, their own internal operations, and the increasing focus and scrutiny on hedge fund trading by the SEC and others.”
 By Bruce Carton
11/10/09 Columns & Editorials
6. Beleaguered SEC Seeks Fresh Start in 2010
For the Securities and Exchange Commission, which operates on a fiscal year that ends every September, Oct. 1, 2009, could not come soon enough. It seems almost beyond dispute that the agency’s fiscal 2009 was the most dismal in its history, and perhaps the most transformational.
 By Bruce Carton
10/13/09 Columns & Editorials
7. Empowering the SEC to Do Its Job
As I argued in this column last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission budget has been well below where it should be for several years. This shortfall has caused the SEC to suffer a 10 percent reduction in staff and a cut of more than 50 percent in its new technology investments since 2005, a period during which the securities markets it regulates have continued to see explosive growth. Most recently, of course, the agency has had to operate in this weakened state in the pressure-cooker of the current economic crisis.
 By Bruce Carton
09/09/09 Columns & Editorials
8. Lack of Funding Cripples SEC Enforcement Division
Back in January, U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) was recognized to speak at a House sub-committee hearing about the Madoff Ponzi scheme and the need for better regulatory oversight to prevent such fraud. He promptly lashed out at a witness from the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating: “I want to know who is responsible for protecting the securities investor, because I want to tell that person or those people whose job it is that they suck at it.”
 By Bruce Carton
08/11/09 Columns & Editorials
9. Answering Lingering Questions in Madoff Wake
On June 29, federal judge Denny Chin handed down the sentence heard 'round the world: 150 years in prison for Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.
 By Bruce Carton
07/14/09 Columns & Editorials
10. SEC Heal Thyself: Compliance Program Revamped
The Securities and Exchange Commission just hasn’t had enough bad news recently, so last month the media piled on even more: a probe of insider-trading allegedly going on inside the SEC.
 By Bruce Carton
06/09/09 Columns & Editorials
11. Specialization Key to SEC Enforcement Division Overhaul
In last month’s column, I noted the arrival of a new Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement director, Robert Khuzami. I suggested that Khuzami had to hit the ground running and discussed the flood of suggestions from within the SEC and from the outside that Khuzami had already received as to what he should prioritize and pursue upon his arrival.
 By Bruce Carton
05/05/09 Columns & Editorials
12. Can New Enforcement Director Restore SEC’s Image?
Robert Khuzami began his new job as director of the Enforcement Division at the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 30. His arrival marks the first change in leadership for the Enforcement Division since 2005.
 By Bruce Carton
04/14/09 Columns & Editorials
13. Closing the Congressional Insider-Trading Loophole
In the days leading up to Nov. 16, 2005, the stock prices and trading volumes of several companies with asbestos-related liabilities including USG Corp., W.R. Grace & Co., and Crown Holdings, began to spike up in an otherwise flat market. No publicly available news about these companies or the industry explained the increases in price and volume.
 By Bruce Carton
03/10/09 Columns & Editorials
14. Making a Case for the SEC’s Enforcement Division
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the people’s case against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. It now rests in your hands to decide whether this is a guilty party.
 By Bruce Carton
02/10/09 Columns & Editorials
15. Madoff Scheme Leads to Host of Problems
It may feel like the Bernard Madoff case has been with us for years, but it was only Dec. 11, 2008, when news broke that the supposed Wall Street titan and former chairman of Nasdaq had been arrested for running a Ponzi scheme of unimaginable size.
 By Bruce Carton
01/13/09 Columns & Editorials
16. Inside Look at the Weird World of Insider Trading
If you want a glimpse into just how weird complaints, schemes, and allegations of insider trading can be, consider the following. In 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission actually published the Q&A guidance below on its Website:
 By Bruce Carton
12/09/08 Columns & Editorials
17. SEC Office of Internet Enforcement Still Going Strong
I was a lawyer in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement from 1995 to 1997, a time perhaps most notable for being the infancy of the public’s use of the Internet. When I first arrived at the SEC, our online resources consisted of a single station that we called a “Bridge machine” that provided some basic business news and a “Ticker Room” that consisted of a couple of Bloomberg terminals.
 By Bruce Carton
11/11/08 Columns & Editorials
18. SEC Enforcement Quandary: Where Do We Go From Here?
Still in the thick of the recent financial turmoil, the Securities and Exchange Commission began its new fiscal year Oct. 1, with as much uncertainty about its future as there has been in many years.
 By Bruce Carton
10/14/08 Columns & Editorials
19. SEC Pays Up! Fair Funds Doled Out to Investors
A little known office established just six months ago within the Securities and Exchange Commission seems to have hit its stride this summer, producing tangible results for investors and possibly signaling the end of six years of frustration for the SEC.
 By Bruce Carton
09/09/08 Columns & Editorials
20. OMG! Will SEC’s Rumor Crackdown Actually Work?
The manipulation of securities prices has been illegal under federal securities law for more than 70 years. Surprisingly, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission had never brought an enforcement action alleging market manipulation through the intentional spreading of false rumors until this past April.
 By Bruce T. Carton
08/12/08 Columns & Editorials
21. Trials Show Job Requirement No. 1 For CFOs Is Courage
In federal courtrooms about 1,000 miles away from each other, two high-profile criminal trials of corporate CEOs are proceeding with so many similarities that it sometimes can be hard to keep them straight. In New York, a jury will likely reach a verdict this week on whether former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers will go to prison in connection with the massive accounting fraud that occurred at that company. In Alabama, the trial of former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy for his alleged role in that company’s accounting fraud is ongoing.
 By Bruce Carton
03/08/05 Compliance Week Coverage
22. Last Week's Events Provide Reminder On SEC Probes
According to former SEC enforcement division senior counsel Bruce Carton, companies need to remember that the period immediately following an SEC investigation must be treated as the "no-spin zone."
 By Bruce Carton
03/16/04 Columns & Editorials
23. Implications For Your Organization
Executive overview includes a brief sidebar that outlines immediate implications to consider.
 By Gardner Carton & Douglas
07/01/03 Guidance

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