The majority of pundits and market observers have only tuned into the effectiveness of the SEC as financial market regulator since 2008, when the financial system nearly collapsed. So far, criticism has been relatively shallow. But when one of the most influential securities attorneys in America, Columbia University’s John Coffee, weighs in on the effectiveness of the SEC’s enforcement actions, we should all take note. Coffee’s SEC biography gives some background on his preeminence:
According to a recent survey of law review citations, Professor Coffee is the most cited law professor in law reviews in the combined corporate, commercial, and business law field.
And what does Professor Coffee have to say about the efforts of the SEC to prosecute financial market lawbreakers? He wrote on the CLS Blue Sky Blog:
A disturbingly persistent pattern has emerged in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement cases that involves three key elements: (1) The commission rarely sues individual defendants at large financial institutions, settling instead with the entity only; (2) when it does sue individual defendants, it frequently loses; and (3) the penalties collected by the commission from corporate defendants are declining and, in any event, are modest in proportion to the profits obtained.
Coffee’s first and second observations are the ones that commentators most often focus on. Why haven’t any bankers, who caused the global financial system to collapse, gone to jail? Coffee contrasts the SEC’s approach with another financial overseer, the FHFA, which has been indicting individuals:
