The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) participated in the annual SEC Speaks conference on March 19 and 20, 2026, bringing together Commissioners and staff to discuss recent developments and share the agency's priorities going forward. This year's remarks offered useful insight into enforcement risks for public companies and investment advisers, highlighting areas that may see increased scrutiny.
In Depth
Materiality: Returning to first principles
Materiality emerged as a defining theme during the conference. Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce emphasized a renewed focus on traditional financial materiality – information tha tmeaningfully affects investor decision-making – while cautioning that the concept has been stretched in recent years to encompass political, environmental, and social matters without a clear financial nexus. This signals a likely move away from expansive, policy-driven disclosure expectations and toward a more economically grounded standard.
Chair Paul Atkins reinforced this approach, describing a forthcoming "spring cleaning" of the SEC rulebook, with materiality as the guiding principle for reassessing disclosure requirements. Atkins emphasized that unnecessary or overly complex disclosures impose real costs and can deter market participation. As an example, he pointed to criticism of the SEC's approach in recent "off-channel communications" cases, suggesting that recordkeeping requirements for broker-dealers had been extended beyond a common-sense reading of the governing standards.
The ACT agenda
Consistent with the SEC's effort to refine its definition of materiality, Chair Atkins announced the SEC's new ACT (Advance, Clarify, Transform) framework, which reflects a broader effort to recalibrate the SEC's approach to compliance and enforcement:
- Advance. The SEC will seek to modernize the regulatory framework to reflect current market realities and develop clear, workable rules, particularly in emerging areas, rather than relying on enforcement to shape policy.
- Clarify. The SEC will work to reduce regulatory uncertainty by drawing clearer jurisdictional lines and improving coordination across agencies, including with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
- Transform. The SEC has begun streamlining existing requirements by eliminating immaterial or overly burdensome rules and refocusing disclosure on what matters most to investors.
Enforcement: A sharper focus on investor harm
In the same vein, Acting Enforcement Director Sam Waldon signaled a continued shift toward more "impact-driven" enforcement, prioritizing cases that deliver meaningful investor protection. The Division will still pursue nonfraud violations but Acting Director Waldon indicated that it will place less emphasis on technical violations or fully remediated conduct and instead prioritize cases involving investor harm, such as fraud and market manipulation.
Acting Director Waldon's remarks follow the apparent launch of a specialized Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Group within the Enforcement Division. According to an SEC job posting, this new group will be tasked with investigating and litigating matters involving potential violations of auditing and related professional standards and provisions of the SOX Act and other relevant federal securities laws – functions historically shared, in part, with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). These structural changes, coupled with significant budget reductions at the PCAOB, signal the SEC's intent to centralize auditing oversight and intensify its internal scrutiny of corporate financial disclosures, internal controls, and gatekeepers.
Self-disclosure and cooperation credit
The SEC continued to incentivize early self-reporting of potential misconduct and issued a stern reminder regarding the "window of opportunity" for cooperation. Meaningful credit is increasingly reserved for companies that report misconduct before the SEC learns of it from other sources (such as media or whistleblowers).
Takeaways
SEC Speaks 2026 reflects an agency that is recalibrating and placing greater emphasis on economic materiality, respect for statutory limits, and streamlined requirements. For in-house counsel, this points to a more disciplined, cost-conscious regulatory environment. At the same time, companies should remain proactive:
- Continue to be vigilant with respect to financial controls. The decreased emphasis on non-financial disclosures arguably means a renewed focus on financial misstatement irregularities. The commission's recent formation of a SOX taskforce shows that it is on the hunt for these cases.
- Expect more targeted enforcement. The SEC is likely to focus on cases involving meaningful investor harm, with less emphasis on technical or fully remediated violations, though core fraud risks remain a top priority. When the SEC identifies a case, it is likely to pursue it vigorously, particularly as to individuals. Acting Director Waldon's comments also show that registered investment advisers remain exposed to regulatory-type cases, such as custody rule violations.
- Act quickly on potential misconduct. The SEC views early self-reporting as critical; companies that delay until the SEC is already aware of an issue should expect little to no cooperation credit.