The SEC announced today that senior enforcement official Daniel M. Hawke will be leaving the agency after 16 years of service. Hawke is currently the Chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Market Abuse Unit, and he also previously served as Regional Director of the SEC's Philadelphia Regional Office from 2006-2013. The SEC stated that Hawke will return to the private sector.

Hawke has been Chief of the SEC's specialized Market Abuse Unit since it was formed in January 2010.  The Market Abuse Unit, which now has more than 60 attorneys and industry specialists across eight offices, is responsible for pursuing "hard-to-detect insider trading activity, market structure violations, market manipulation, and other trading abuses." 

 

Under Hawke, the Market Abuse Unit introduced new tactics and technology to identify insider trading such as quantitative analysis and the establishment of an Analysis and Detection Center. The SEC stated that the Market Abuse Deputy Unit's Deputy Chiefs, Robert Cohen and Joseph Sansone, will serve as co-acting Unit Chiefs until a permanent Chief is named.

 

Hawke has also served an important historian for the SEC. In 2002, Hawke authored a paper for the SEC Historical Society's Oral Histories Committee entitled, "A Brief History of the SEC’s Enforcement Program 1934-1981." The paper 

examines the general themes and trends that characterize the history of the Commission’s enforcement program during the period 1934 through 1981. Focusing particularly on the Commission’s early years, this paper discusses the significant enforcement events that are representative of the eras in which they occurred and that provide opportunities for insight into how the Commission’s enforcement program evolved and expanded over time.