February 2010

Friday, February 5, 2010 to Saturday, February 6, 2010

As the Securities and Exchange Commission takes on the challenges of the current financial crisis and looks to the future, it is more important than ever to hear directly from the Chairman, the Commissioners, and the senior staff about the initiatives for the coming year. In the past few years, the Commission has focused on a broad range of regulatory and enforcement initiatives relating to the financial crisis. The Commission is presently engaged in significant regulatory reforms in such areas as credit default swaps and other derivatives, credit rating agencies, abusive short selling, mutual fund disclosure, money market funds, and dark pools. Many of the SEC's reform initiatives are also the subject of comparable international developments. At the same time, the Commission has also brought significant enforcement actions relating to financial and accounting frauds, Ponzi schemes, market manipulations, insider trading, credit default swaps and other derivatives, proxy statement disclosures and pay-to-play schemes involving municipal securities and public pension funds. The Commission is also focused on accelerating its enforcement efforts. Last year, the Commission reinvigorated the Enforcement Division by eliminating restrictive procedural requirements regarding formal orders of investigation and issuer penalties. This year, under a new Director of Enforcement, Robert Khuzami, the SEC has undertaken the most significant reorganization of the Enforcement Division in its history, creating five specialized units in priority enforcement areas, streamlining internal processes, putting more attorneys on front-line investigations, and encouraging cooperation by individuals under investigation.