Paul Atkins Nominated as SEC Chair | Salvatore Faia Insights
VIGILANT INSIGHTS
Introduction
On December 4th, 2024, Paul Atkins was nominated by president-elect, Donald Trump, to take over for current SEC Chair, Gary Gensler.
This decision was met with mixed responses, but the industry overall reacted with optimism that SEC priorities may go through significant change in the next four years.
After another record-breaking year for the SEC in terms of penalties, there are some that see Atkins’ nomination as a step towards a less aggressive regulatory environment.
Our President & CEO, Salvatore Faia, JD, CPA, CFE, provided his insights below into this new nomination on WealthManagement.com.
Salvatore Faia Insights
Salvatore mentions that the sheer amount of rulemaking under the current administration had been “tremendous”. The list of potential Rule Adoptions still waiting to be finalized is substantial.
It is made clear by Salvatore that continuously adding on new rules inevitably leads to compliance issues as Firms struggle to keep up.
Salvatore agrees with other compliance experts that Atkins will likely focus his enforcement efforts on specific bad actors, instead of entire Firms, but insists that reducing regulatory burden on the industry is also a strong possibility with this nomination.
Vigilant’s Conclusion
While the industry continues to speculate on the outcomes of these nominations, it is important that Firms do not relax their compliance practices in anticipation of a different culture at the SEC. If the Division of Enforcement chooses to levy smaller penalties against Firms, and larger penalties against individuals, there is still the damage to Firm credibility and client trust that would result from compliance failures.
It is worth noting that while Rule Adoptions and total penalties have increased significantly in the past four years, the number of enforcement actions remained relatively consistent over the past eight years.
Now is the time to continue the compliance success you have developed; reach out to us today to discuss your game plan for developing a proactive compliance program in 2025.