As I observed here a year ago,

It is hard to make anything 100% pure. Ivory Soap famously falls just short at 99.44% pure. Even Breaking Bad's Walter White could not get his blue-tinted methamphetamine purer than 99.1%.

In FY 2014, however, the SEC maintained 100% perfection in its administrative proceedings. The agency reportedly prevailed in every single one of its more than 200 APs in FY 2014, including 14 consecutive victories in cases that went to a litigated hearing before an SEC Administrative Law Judge. That will not be the case in FY 2015, however, as the SEC actually lost a case this week that had made it all the way to a litigated hearing before Administrative Law Judge Jason S. Patil.

As they say in March Madness, Upset Alert!!!!

On Wednesday of this week, Judge Patil ruled In the Matter of Thomas R. Delaney II and Charles W. Yancey that respondent Yancey "did not fail reasonably to supervise Delaney and a second employee with a view to preventing and detecting their alleged aiding and abetting of [Penson Financial Services'] violations." 

Yancey was represented by Kit Addleman, a partner at law firm Haynes and Boone. Commenting on the case, Ms. Addleman noted the significant challenges that her client faced due to being charged in an administrative proceeding as opposed to in federal court. "We faced a trial in which the accused individuals had little opportunity to develop any defensive evidence though discovery, were not allowed to take a single deposition, and had to rely almost entirely on the record that the enforcement staff had nearly three years to develop," she said.

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