SEC Division of Enforcement Co-Directors Stephanie Avakian and Steven Peikin Provide Remarks on Enforcement Division’s Initiatives and Priorities

On October 26, 2017, Stephanie Avakian and Steven Peikin, Co-Directors of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, provided remarks at the 2017 Securities Enforcement Forum regarding the Enforcement Division’s new initiatives and priorities.

Ms. Avakian, during the Forum’s keynote address, discussed the recently-announced Retail Strategy Task Force and Cyber Unit, which she explained would allow the Commission to focus its resources on two of its key priorities.  Ms. Avakian, however, was careful to make clear that despite these new areas of focus, the SEC would not allocate fewer resources to “financial fraud or policing Wall Street.”  In addition, during the Forum’s “Director’s Panel,” Mr. Peikin suggested that rather than the wide sweeps that have been a hallmark of the “broken windows” approach to enforcement that was a priority during Mary Jo White’s tenure as SEC Chair, resource constraints may cause the SEC to seek to achieve the same objectives with fewer cases.