MyComplianceOffice Blog

It should come as no surprise to compliance teams that the management of Books and Records is in the regulatory spotlight. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently charged several large Wall Street firms with widespread record keeping failures. The firms will be required to pay combined penalties of more than $1.1 billion, and also must make substantive improvements to their compliance policies and procedures around books and records.

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 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released its Annual Agenda for 2021. The Agenda provides a list of Rules in the Prerule, Proposed, and Final stages and offers a snapshot of the SEC’s long and short term regulatory priorities.

What are the most significant pressures facing compliance programs in 2021? And where are the largest constraints? An audience of Chief Compliance Officers and General Counsel were asked those questions during the during the webinar Compliance Budgeting: Reducing Risk by Doing More With Less.