Securities Investigations and Enforcement
An enforcement matter is not a lawsuit. The exposure is the license, the registration and the reputation — and it begins before anyone is charged with anything.
The practice
Why these matters are handled differently.
The firm represents corporations and individuals facing inquiries from the Securities and Exchange Commission, state securities regulators and FINRA.
A commercial dispute is about money and it ends. A regulatory matter can end in a bar, a suspension, a statutory disqualification or a disclosure that follows someone for the rest of their career — and much of what determines the outcome happens early, in an informal inquiry, before there is anything to defend. Silence and delay are read as facts.
So the work is prompt and it is proactive. Establishing what the regulator is actually looking at, controlling how the response is framed, and knowing when a matter should be resolved by negotiation rather than fought. Familiarity with the process and the people running it decides a great deal of that.
Subjects
What regulators are usually asking about.
Where a matter involves protected disclosure to the Commission, see the SEC whistleblower program.
Further reading
If a letter has already arrived.
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