The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it filed 697 total enforcement actions in the fiscal year 2021, which ended on Sept. 30. This represented a 3 percent decrease over the total actions filed in the fiscal year 2020. The SEC obtained judgments and orders for nearly $2.4 billion in disgorgement and more than $1.4 billion in penalties, which represented a respective 33 percent decrease and 33 percent increase over amounts ordered in the prior fiscal year. It was a record year for whistleblower awards, with the SEC awarding a total of $564 million to 108 whistleblowers.
The SEC’s Enforcement Division is the cop on the beat for America’s securities laws. As these results show, we go after misconduct wherever we find it in the financial system, holding individuals and companies accountable, without fear or favor, across the $100-plus trillion capital markets we oversee.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
“This year has seen a number of critically important and first-of-their-kind enforcement actions, as well as record-breaking achievements for our whistleblower program, which we expect will lead to even more successful actions in the future,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
