MyComplianceOffice Blog

Cases of insider trading and securities compliance failures have made headlines in recent years. And for a good reason. Financial markets rely heavily on high liquidity, making it easy to trade securities without affecting price. However, when markets are manipulated, liquidity is affected, transaction costs can increase, and investor returns are reduced.

The SEC’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs recently released the Spring 2022 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The report provides an update on the short and long-term regulatory actions that the agency plans to take.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released it’s report of enforcement actions for their fiscal year 2021 ending on September 30. 697 companies were hit with violations this year.

New actions were included against emerging threats in the crypto and SPAC spaces, but there was still plenty of enforcement in more traditional areas like insider trading, inadequate disclosure and breaching of fiduciary duty.

What types of misconduct landed individuals and firms on the SEC’s radar this year?

A consulting firm partner who was advising a global bank on the acquisition of a FinTech loan processing firm was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on two counts of securities fraud for illegal trading using material nonpublic information (MNPI). In a parallel action, criminal charges were also filed in the state of New York that bring a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released a press release stating that three individuals were charged for illegally communicating non-public and material information and using such information to buy shares in a company. The investigation was jointly conducted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force.