Fiscal year 2014 proved to be another eventful and record-breaking year for the Division of Enforcement (Enforcement Division) of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or the Commission). Indeed, the Commission recently described the fiscal year that ended in September (i.e., FY2014) as a “very strong year” for enforcement, and by certain measures it certainly was.1 This description of the SEC’s performance and approach, however, is not without controversy as various aspects of the SEC’s enforcement approach have been criticized in some quarters, including by certain of the SEC’s own commissioners.
In FY2014, as illustrated, the SEC filed 755 enforcement actions, an all-time record. This means that the SEC filed 69 more enforcement actions in FY2014 than in FY2013 (when it filed 686 actions) and 21 more actions in FY2014 than in FY2012 (when it filed 734 actions). The increase reflects the continued implementation of SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s controversial “Broken Windows” enforcement philosophy.
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