On November 18, 2016, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Mary Jo White discussed the SEC's enforcement program, focusing on white collar crime in particular. She detailed the SEC's "Investigate to Litigate" philosophy, where SEC staff are instructed to conduct all investigations with litigation in mind. She also discussed a number of measures the SEC has to detect misconduct, from advanced data analysis to whistleblowers. In particular, she highlighted the SEC's focus on individual wrongdoers and its policy of requiring admissions as a condition for certain settlements. Chair White then discussed the need to target more senior executives, praising the UK's recently implemented Senior Manager Regime, designed to incentivize executives and other senior managers to take greater responsibility for their actions. She also talked about the possibility of giving the SEC the authority to seek greater civil penalties and the dangers of proposed reforms that would require a criminal warrant, which the SEC cannot obtain, to seek certain electronic evidence as a part of investigations.
Chair White's remarks are available at: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/chair-white-speech-new-york-university-111816.html .
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