Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is pressing Paul Atkins, the Securities and Exchange Commission chair, to release by March 15 the "unreasonably delayed" data on the agency's enforcement actions in fiscal year 2025.
"Third-party analyses of public SEC actions reveal a steep decline in enforcement at the SEC in FY 2025 — prompting concerns about whether the SEC is doing its job as a cop on the beat protecting investors from getting cheated and defrauded," Warren told Atkins in a letter, which was sent on Feb. 27 and released by Warren Tuesday.
The SEC "historically releases data regarding its enforcement actions in the past fiscal year — such as information on total actions, tips and complaints, and financial remedies — at the end of the same calendar year," Warren wrote.
Enforcement data for FY 2024, for example, was released in November 2024.
"But the SEC, under your leadership, has yet to release FY 2025 data," Warren wrote.
Atkins promised in his Feb. 12 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Warren noted, that the SEC would release data on enforcement actions.
"At the hearing on February 12, I specifically asked you to confirm that 'the SEC has brought fewer new enforcement actions than at any point in the last decade,'" Warren wrote. "In response, you stated that you were 'not sure what data (I was) looking at because we actually haven't released our data yet' and that you 'disagreed' with the premise of my question."
'Steep Decline' in Enforcement Actions
During the Feb. 12 oversight hearing, Warren told Atkins that the third-party reports found a slowdown in SEC enforcement efforts, including "total new enforcement actions, actions related to securities offerings, investment advisers, investment companies, issuer reporting, and broker dealers," Warren said in her letter.
The third-party data found that stand-alone actions against investment advisors/investment companies saw a marked decrease, with 74 cases being brought in fiscal 2025, down from 97 in fiscal 2024, according to Warren's letter. Broker-dealer cases also declined in fiscal 2025, dropping from 61 in fiscal 2024 to 43 in fiscal 2025.
Warren asked Atkins to clarify in his response if these statistics are incorrect.
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