Regulatory Enforcement Defense
Practice Areas
Financial Services Litigation & Regulation
Strategic Discovery & Information Management
Looking Forward
In a year challenged by pandemic, political divisions and staff working remotel, the SEC rounded out its fiscal 2020 this fall with a respectable 715 case count, an all-time record of $4.68 billion in monetary sanctions, and an array of enforcement activity spanning all its program areas. Several factors point to a particularly aggressive year ahead. Foremost is the SEC’s new focus on whistleblowers, now a major case source, where it made a record $175 million in awards to 39 individuals in fiscal 2020, and kicked off its new year with a record award of $114 million to a single whistleblower. We expect SEC funding and hence staffing to grow significantly in the Biden administration, with bipartisan support made easier by the fact that the SEC uses no tax dollars and instead operates on filing fees.