MyComplianceOffice Blog

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said in a speech to the Practicing Law Institute that during the fiscal year that just ended on September 30, the agency filed over 700 actions and obtained judgments and orders totaling $6.4 billion, including $4 billion in civil penalties.

 The actions, outlined in a recent press release, covered a wide range of misconduct including charges around insider trading, disclosure failures and omissions, market manipulation and fraud, misleading investors, executive accountability, failure to maintain books and records, failure to register crypto as a security and insufficient policies and procedures. 

For every registered firm with the SEC, it’s not a matter of if you’ll be examined but when. COVID-19 drove a necessity for the SEC to adapt its examination processes from traditionally in-person activities to remote. As a result, companies operating in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region must now be ready and able to support the SEC in its procedures.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released the staff bulletin Standards of Conduct for Broker-Dealers and Investment Adviser Conflicts of Interest to reiterate the required standards and obligations for broker-dealers under Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) and for investment advisers the fiduciary duty standards under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

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 SEC issued the Risk Alert Investment Adviser MNPI Compliance Issues to provide investment advisers, investors, and other market participants with information concerning notable deficiencies that the the Division of Examinations (“EXAMS”) has cited related to material non-public information (MNPI) and Code of Ethics Issues.