Here’s the intro from this entry on Cooley’s “Securities Litigation + Enforcement” blog penned by Luke Cadigan, Tejal Shah, Elizabeth Skey, Samanta Kirby and Bingxin Wu: “When Paul Atkins became the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April 2025, the market expected enforcement actions against public companies to decrease. Chairman Atkins has criticized the prior SEC administration’s pursuit of large corporate fines, believing that they unfairly penalized shareholders. He also criticized the Gensler administration’s focus on technical violations that did not involve any “genuine harm and bad acts.”
With 2025 ending, it appears that Atkins followed through on his promise to realign the SEC’s enforcement priorities to return to the SEC’s core mission of pursuing clear-cut rule violations in an effort to bolster investor protection, with a focus on traditional fraud as opposed to technical violations, such as books-and-records infractions. This resulted in a sharp decline in public company enforcement. A recent Cornerstone report[1] showed that in FY 2025, the SEC initiated 56 actions against public companies and their subsidiaries, 52 of which were initiated prior to Chairman Gary Gensler’s departure on January 20. Only two enforcement actions were initiated after Atkins became chairman, and he recused himself with respect to one of the charging decisions.
In addition to a decrease in new public company enforcement actions, 2025 also saw the SEC retreating from Gensler-era initiatives in crypto and cybersecurity enforcement. Since January, the SEC has closed most of its crypto investigations and enforcement actions, which Atkins has characterized as “the previous administration’s regulation-by-enforcement crusade.” On November 20, the SEC terminated its long-running litigation against SolarWinds and its chief information security officer relating to SolarWinds’ cybersecurity disclosures.
Looking ahead to 2026, we expect the SEC to prioritize charging individuals responsible for misconduct rather than imposing corporate penalties. We also expect a continued focus on insider trading, especially in the biotech sector. Finally, as discussed in our October 28 blog post, foreign issuers listed on US stock exchanges will likely face continued close scrutiny, particularly where “pump and dump” schemes are suspected.”
Authored by
Broc Romanek