This year will go down in history as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s highest ever in enforcement actions filed.
The SEC said Thursday its enforcement division filed 735 enforcement actions in its fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. More than $2.8 billion in penalties and disgorgement were ordered behind those actions.
The numbers includes many cases involving highly complex products, transactions and market practices, including those related to the financial crisis as well as insider trading by market professionals, according to the SEC.
Thirty-six cases related to the financial crisis involving some of the country’s biggest banks have been filed since 2008, the commission said. Nearly half of the 81 defendants in those cases were CEOs, chief financial officers and senior corporate executives, resulting in approximately $1.97 billion in disgorgement, penalties and other monetary relief obtained.
The SEC said it filed 146 actions related to investment advisers and investment companies, a single-year record and a 30% increase over FY 2010. The SEC also brought 112 enforcement actions related to broker-dealers, which was a 60% increase over last year.
Insider trading cases were up nearly 8% over 2010, according to the SEC. The agency also brought 89 actions in FY 2011 for financial fraud and disclosure violations.
