Marshall S. Sprung, co-chief of the SEC Division of Enforcement’s Asset Management Unit, is leaving the agency after 13 years of service. Sprung's departure follows the recent exit of his former co-chief, Julie Riewe, who left the SEC in February 2016 to join the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. The SEC's Anthony Kelly, who was named co-chief of the AMU when Riewe left the agency, will continue to lead the unit following Sprung’s departure later this month.

The SEC established the AMU in January 2010 as one of several new specialized units. The AMU focuses on investigations involving Investment Advisors, Investment Companies, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity Funds. As co-chief of the AMU for the past two-and-a-half years, Sprung led a nationwide staff of nearly 80 attorneys, industry experts, and other professionals. Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, credited Sprung for his thoughtful and creative leadership, and added that Sprung "drove the unit’s data-driven approach that led to innovative and impactful cases involving asset managers and investment advisers.”

The AMU's enforcement actions brought under Mr. Sprung’s leadership include the cases against Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., in which KKR paid nearly $30 million for misallocating more than $17 million in so-called “broken deal” expenses -- the agency’s first action to address such conduct. Sprung's AMU also led the SEC's case against R.T. Jones Capital Equities Management, an investment adviser that was the subject of an enforcement action related to the firm's alleged failure to "establish the required cybersecurity policies and procedures in advance of a breach that compromised the personally identifiable information (PII) of approximately 100,000 individuals, including thousands of the firm’s clients." The R.T Jones matter was the SEC's first enforcement action against a regulated entity for a cybersecurity-related violation.

 

Sprung joined the SEC in 2003, and became co-chief of the AMU in 2013.