Financial Regulatory Forum

By Nick Paraskeva

NEW YORK, March 14 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants more power to fine firms and individuals for fraud and market abuses, in the face of tougher public scrutiny and judicial opposition to recent settlements. While the agency has been imposing stiffer penalties, the amount remains constrained by the agency’s current authority, said George Canellos SEC New York Regional Office Director.

Canellos was speaking as part of a panel last week on trends in financial enforcement and securities litigation after Dodd-Frank. The panel was organized by NYU Stern Business School and NERA Economic Consulting. (more…)

By Morris Simkin, Thomson Reuters Accelus contributing author

NEW YORK, Dec. 22 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) – I was recently involved in a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission to revoke the registration of a company’s common stock. But the company’s publicly held common stock had been revoked by a bankruptcy court order issued some seven years before the SEC proceeding began.

This piqued my curiosity. Why was the SEC bringing this proceeding, and how many other similar cases had they brought? How much was this costing the public — both in terms of SEC staff time and other enforcement opportunities lost because the staff was pursuing these companies? And were there better ways to get the same result? (more…)