SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission rescinded a policy Monday requiring defendants in settled enforcement actions not to publicly deny the SEC's allegations.

The SEC is now focused on "quality of cases versus quantity," the SEC chairman said during a discussion held as part of the 2026 FINRA Annual Conference.

The number of SEC enforcement actions have dropped during the second Trump administration. But the new head of the division said he supports "quality over quantity."

Defendants who've reached settlements with industry regulators complain their First Amendment rights are breached by orders forbidding them to talk about their cases.

NASAA's proposal would align state laws with the SEC's marketing rule, eliminating concerns advisors have about running afoul of more local laws as they accept testimonials and reviews.

The proposal is part of what SEC Chairman Paul Atkins calls his "Make IPOs Great Again" agenda.

The policy was one of the signature efforts of Gary Gensler's leadership of the SEC, requiring companies to report material risks to their business due to a changing climate.

The firms' collaboration shines a light on how the wealth management business works today and how it is evolving, as advisors weigh independence against the risks of "poking the bear" when they leave.

Court decisions vacated the Biden administration's DOL rule — but that didn't make rollover rules easy, experts say. Firms that get compliance right will have an edge in tapping a trillion-dollar-plus market.

David Woodcock is set to take the job as SEC leadership directs staff to focus on insider trading, accounting fraud cases, market manipulation and breach of fiduciary duty by investment advisors.

SEC regulators instead take aim at their predecessors in the Biden Administration, saying the outsized fines were partly the result of a desire to "pursue media headlines and run up numbers."

FINRA and consumer advocates are raising alarms about online scams that are driving fraud losses into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

A decade after the SEC first raised concerns about outsourced CCOs, the model is growing. But the fundamental tension remains: How many firms can one person truly oversee, and at what risk?

Commonwealth was hit with the landmark penalty over its advisors' mutual-fund recommendations the year before its acquisition by LPL Financial. But it will pay only a fraction of that now.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an interpretation of how federal securities laws apply to crypto.

A recent alert from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission flags ongoing compliance gaps in testimonials, endorsements and third-party ratings as scrutiny shifts to real-world practices.

In a sternly written footnote, federal Judge Steven Merryday said the SEC's refusal to release information on its penalty calculations appears to "countenance duplicity, gamesmanship, neglect, insouciance" or worse.

Panelists said advisory firms should take urgent steps to get ahead of regulatory examinations focusing on AI use.

The platforms, where bets are placed on everything from U.K. soccer teams to the price of bitcoin, are getting traction from investors and attention from regulators.

The SEC's decision marks a startling reversal from the full-court press it had mounted against Commonwealth Financial Network in 2019 over alleged failures to disclose conflicts of interest in its brokers' mutual fund recommendations.