The U.S. Sentencing Commission is mulling possible changes to its Federal Sentencing Guidelines that could change the expectations for “effective” corporate compliance programs generally, and for the chief compliance officer in particular. The Guidelines, first enacted in 1991 and last revised in 2004, spell out 10 points that define an effective compliance program. They have […]
Regulatory Enforcement
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
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, […]
Posted inInternal Controls
SEC’s Aguilar on SEC, Financial Regulation Reforms
Despite the progress made during the last year, both with respect to financial reform and reform of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement program, there’s more work to do, according to at least one SEC official. While he praised some of the progress made to date, SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar, in a Feb. 5 speech, […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
SEC’s Schapiro Details What’s Ahead For 2010
More crisis-related cases and more rulemaking, lots of it, are on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s agenda in the months ahead, according to the agency’s chairman. Highlighting some of the recent mortgage-related, pay-to-play cases, accounting fraud, and insider-trading cases brought by the SEC, its chairman, Mary Schapiro, promised more to come. “The pipeline is full […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
Proposed Budget May Mean SEC Gets $1.258B, Adds Staff
The President’s budget request of $1.258 billion for the Securities and Exchange Commission for fiscal 2011 would increase the Commission’s coffers by roughly $139 million, or 12 percent over its fiscal 2010 funding level, and would enable the agency to add about 380 staff positions. That’s according to the report, Congressional Justification FY 2011 in […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
CFTC: Billy Ray and Winthrop Were Not Insider Traders
Earlier this week, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler clarified that no matter what you might have assumed back in 1983, Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) and Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) did not commit insider trading when they made millions trading on orange juice futures in the movie Trading Places. As you may […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
Securities Regulation Institute, Concluded
Last week I filed a dispatch from the Securities Regulation Institute’s annual conference out in San Diego, focusing on the first day’s agenda of SEC policy and risk management challenges. Before I forget, let’s circle back to review the main points of Day 2: enforcement. The stars of the day were Robert Khuzami, director of […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
SEC Enforcement Division Gets Sweeping Makeover
The Securities and Exchange Commission is making good on its promise to galvanize its enforcement efforts, implementing new policies to win cooperation from individuals and corporations during its investigations and a revamped personnel structure aimed at helping the agency ferret out complicated wrongdoing more quickly. The reforms include deferred- and non-prosecution agreements for targets of […]
Posted inRegulatory Enforcement
New Cooperation Tools, an Enforcement Game Changer
Forging ahead with the revamp of its Enforcement Division, the Securities and Exchange Commission unveiled new tools to incentivize individuals and companies to cooperate with the enforcement staff during investigations, including deferred- and non-prosecution agreements and a so-called Seaboard Memo for individuals. For the first time, the SEC set out in a new policy statement […]
