Supreme Court defines time limits for the SEC to pursue civil cases

In a ruling that dealt a stinging setback to the Securities Exchange Commission, the Supreme Court has ruled that the SEC has a five-year time limit in which to pursue civil penalties for trading violations. Most importantly, the five-year clock begins at the time of the infraction, not when the infraction was discovered. This will mean that numerous cases that happened in the early days of the financial crisis will soon become out of bounds for SEC action, if they have not already done so.