Bruce Carton

This week has seen a trio of significant “firsts” from the UK’s Serious Fraud Office, including its first-ever Deferred Prosecution Agreement and two cases brought under section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010.

Slater & Gordon, a publicly-traded Australian law firm that is a major player in the plaintiffs’ securities class action area, must now contend with the consequences of its own stock price plummeting.

The SEC announced an insider trading case today against a former Goldman Sachs compliance employee who allegedly used his access to investment bankers’ emails to glean, and profit from, inside information.

After a surge in FY 2014, the number of trials that the SEC is completing in federal court appears to be drying up — with just six such trials in FY 2015 and zero to date in FY 2016.

The issue of whether federal district courts have subject matter jurisdiction over challenges to the constitutionality of SEC administrative proceedings remains unsettled. Although the 7th Circuit found in favor of the SEC on this issue in August 2015, the controversial issue will soon be considered by both the 11th Circuit and 2nd Circuit. Bruce Carton has more inside.

In a speech this week, SEC Commissioner Michael S. Piwowar took another swipe at the SEC’s enforcement statistics, jokingly comparing them to financial statements in a “world where GAAP or other reporting standards did not exist.”

Image: SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar intends to step down  at the end of December. In a letter to the president, Aguilar expressed pride in sponsoring the first Investor Advisory Committee, which was later mandated by Section 911 of Dodd-Frank. Aguilar will leave the SEC as the eighth longest-serving commissioner out of the 94 commissioners in its history. More inside.

After 17 years as SEC Solicitor — and 53 years of service at the SEC — Jacob H. Stillman is stepping down from the Solicitor position. The SEC announced today that Stillman will remain as senior advisor to Michael A. Conley, who has been appointed as the new SEC Solicitor.

James Alan Craig is no retired Croatian underwear seamstress but the most recent developments in his “false tweets” case are starting to remind me a bit of the Sonja Anticevic saga from back in 2005.

So far in 2015, the Justice Department has settled just two corporate Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases—notably lower than the 10 in 2014, nine in 2013, and 11 in 2012. According to the Wall Street Journal, the decline is due to a “sea change” in the Justice Department’s foreign corruption enforcement with its policy shift toward targeting the “worst offenders.” A DoJ spokesman told the WSJ that, despite the decline, the Department’s “commitment to FCPA enforcement is stronger than ever.” Is it? CW’s Bruce Carton explores further inside.