{"id":5466,"date":"2013-06-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/institutionalinvestorsecuritiesblog.blawgcloud.com\/2013\/06\/sec_tells_financial_firms_that"},"modified":"2022-05-04T14:11:49","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T19:11:49","slug":"sec-tells-financial-firms-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-tells-financial-firms-that\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Tells Financial Firms That Settling Without Denying or Admitting to Wrongdoing is No Longer Allowed in Certain Securities Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White recently announced that defendants in certain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.securities-fraud-attorneys.com\">securities cases <\/a>would no longer be allowed to accompany an agreement to settle with the statement that they are doing so but without admitting or denying wrongdoing. Speaking to a columnist with <em>The New York Times<\/em>, White said that in certain instances, admissions are necessary for there to be public accountability. However, White also did say that most SEC cases still would be settled under the \u201cnether admit nor deny standard,\u201d which provides the accused incentive to settle while compensation to victims sooner.<\/p>\n<p>The new policy was announced to SEC enforcement staff last week in a memo from George Canellos and Andrew Ceresney, the regulator\u2019s enforcement division co-leaders. They went on to say that in cases that warrant such an admission, if the accused were to refuse then a securities lawsuit might be the next step.<\/p>\n<p>Securities cases that require admissions of wrongdoing will have to satisfy certain criteria, such as intentional misconduct that was egregious, wrongdoing that hurt a lot of investors or put them at risk of serious financial harm, or unlawful obstruction of the Commission\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis policy change is long overdue,\u201d said SSEK Founder and Stockbroker Fraud Lawyer William Shepherd. \u201cOver the past decade, the SEC has accommodated the targets it has been investigating far too often. Only rarely is there the requirement of admission of wrongdoing, and almost never for large financial firms and their management. When one is caught with a hand in the cookie jar, it\u2019s time to say \u2018I did it and I\u2019m sorry, rather than \u201cI neither admit nor deny it was my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The change policy comes in the wake of complaints that the SEC has been to lax with its enforcement, especially when it came to pursuing securities fraud cases against large financial institutions involved in the economic crisis, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/jp-morgan-chase-background-information.html\">JPMorgan Chase (JPM)<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/bank-of-america-background-information.html\">Bank of America (BAC) <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/citigroup-background-information.html\">Citigroup (C)<\/a>, which all settled cases against them without denying or admitting guilt. Having to admit wrongdoing potentially could hurt financial firms because plaintiffs in private securities cases and class action fraud litigation may then cite the acknowledgement of culpability, thereby strengthening their claims. This could force banks to have to pay out millions of dollars than if they hadn&#8217;t admitted to doing anything wrong.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/06\/22\/business\/secs-new-chief-promises-tougher-line-on-cases.html\">S.E.C. Has a Message for Firms Not Used to Admitting Guilt<\/a>, Stockbroker Fraud Law Firm, NY Times, June 22, 2013<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/litigation\/litreleases.shtml\">Securities and Exchange Commission<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>More Blog Posts:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/controversial_democratic_appoi\">Controversial Democratic Appointee Pushes SEC for Less Talk About Investor and Securities Market Protections and More Action<\/a>, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, April 28, 2013<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-tells-financial-firms-that\/#more-5466\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White recently announced that defendants in certain securities cases would no longer be allowed to accompany an agreement to settle with the statement that they are doing so but without admitting or denying wrongdoing. Speaking to a columnist with The New York Times, White said that in certain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3752,3760,3795,3761],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-financial-firms","category-sec-enforcement","category-sec-settlements","category-securities-and-exchange-commis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEC Tells Financial Firms That Settling Without Denying or Admitting to Wrongdoing is No Longer Allowed in Certain Securities Cases &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; June 26, 2013<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White recently announced that defendants in certain securities cases would no longer be allowed to &#8212; June 26, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-tells-financial-firms-that\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"SEC Tells Financial Firms That Settling Without Denying or Admitting to Wrongdoing is No Longer Allowed in Certain Securities Cases &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; June 26, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White recently announced that defendants in certain securities cases would no longer be allowed to &#8212; June 26, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"SEC Tells Financial Firms That Settling Without Denying or Admitting to Wrongdoing is No Longer Allowed in Certain Securities Cases &#8212; 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