SEC Enforcement
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Article
Five-year limit placed on SEC disgorgement penalties
The SEC must rethink how it collects billions of dollars through disgorgement now that the Supreme Court has imposed a five-year statute of limitations.
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Article
Under new leadership, which way will the SEC go?
Big changes are afoot at the SEC, which raises the question of whether this might be the beginning of a big new era in the Commission’s tone, direction, and priorities.
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Article
When a Board Member Goes Bad
Image: Investigations into rumors of misconduct are part of a compliance officer’s job. Seldom, however, is the task as delicate as when investigating a board member. “You need to think about making decisions knowing that the facts may end up completely different, once it is all done,” Adam Frankel, general ...
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Article
Dueling Views on SEC Enforcement
Image: A chronic dilemma for the SEC Enforcement Division is how best to focus its efforts given resource constraints. Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney had to answer for how those decisions are made during a meeting of the Investment Advisory Committee last week. Despite calls to abolish the “broken windows” approach, ...
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Blog post
Gleaning Enforcement Insights From Accounting Missteps
A confession from Compliance Week columnist Robert Herz: He spends time each summer reading Accounting & Auditing Enforcement Releases the SEC publishes as part of its enforcement against corporate misconduct. This week, Herz looks over the various AAERs of the last 12 months to pluck out common themes: more enforcement ...
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Blog post
Aguilar Sounds Off on CCO Liability Again
Image: More shots fired this week in the continuing war of words at the SEC about whether the agency is unfairly taking enforcement action against chief compliance officers. This time, Commissioner Luis Aguilar defended the agency with a statement calling for the SEC to be more clear in its enforcement ...
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Blog post
SEC's Erin Schneider Named Associate Regional Director in San Francisco
The SEC has named Erin E. Schneider as the new Associate Regional Director for enforcement in its San Francisco office. As Associate Regional Director, Schneider will lead the team of attorneys, accountants and other professionals who investigate and litigate the San Francisco office’s enforcement efforts for Northern California and the ...
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Blog post
SEC Announces 2015 Examination Priorities
The SEC has released its examination priorities for 2015. The list includes cyber-security controls and assessing anti-money laundering efforts, with a focus on firms that have not filed suspicious activity reports or have incomplete or late filings. SEC staff will also examine proxy advisory service firms, assessing how they make ...
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Blog post
Study: Whistleblowers Are Even More Costly Than You Thought
When whistleblowers tip off the government with information about corporate wrongdoing, the damage can be more costly than otherwise expected, according to a new study. Even before the SEC started offering rewards for actionable information, the assistance of one or more tipsters in an enforcement action increased penalties by an ...
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ArticleSEC Enforcement Trends: Targeting Gatekeepers and Rewarding Tipsters
The Securities and Exchange Commission brought a record-breaking number of enforcement actions in fiscal year 2014, including several against compliance and audit executives. That should come as no surprise: Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney (pictured above) warned last spring that the SEC wouldn’t hesitate to pursue executives, including compliance professionals, when ...
