“As reflected in these results, the Enforcement Division is working with a sense of urgency to protect investors, hold wrongdoers accountable and deter future misconduct in our financial markets,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the Division of Enforcement said.
“A centerpiece of those efforts is ensuring that we are using every tool in our toolkit, including penalties that have a deterrent effect and are viewed as more than the cost of doing business. While we set a Commission record this past fiscal year for total money ordered at $6.4 billion, including a record $4.2 billion in penalties, we don’t expect to break these records and set new ones each year because we expect behaviors to change. We expect compliance,” he said.
A hallmark of the enforcement program “was robust enforcement through resolutions that imposed penalties designed to deter future violations, establish accountability from major institutions, and order tailored undertakings that provide potential roadmaps for compliance by other firms,” the SEC said.
As an example, the SEC cited its $1.235 settlement with JP Morgan Securities LLC, 15 other broker dealers and one investment advisor for widespread and longstanding failures to maintain and preserve work-related text message communications conducted on employees’ personal devices, the agency said.
Each of the firms agreed to remediate past failures and prevent future misconduct. In aggregate, the SEC’s orders included admissions of the wrongful conduct and acknowledgements of violations from all 17 firms, the agency said.