Companies targeted by SEC enforcement actions often face parallel private class actions under the federal securities laws based on the same underlying conduct. But when the SEC selects enforcement targets, negotiates settlements, and assesses its own performance, it is unclear whether or how the...

Corporate America today is astonishingly beholden to three large financial institutions: BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors. As investors have moved their money into low cost, highly-diversified investment vehicles known as index funds, the so-called “Big Three”...

When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) files an administrative enforcement action, the respondent is ordinarily entitled to present their case orally at an in-person hearing before one of the agency's Administrative Law Judges. But, in hundreds of administrative proceedings over the...

For decades, commentators have warned about the “revolving door” between the SEC and the regulated industry. So far, however, the debate has overlooked a different “door” SEC attorneys might walk through. Joining a plaintiffs' side securities litigation firm would seem to be an appealing...

The Securities and Exchange Commission's aggressive prosecution of securities violations inside administrative proceedings (APs) has generated backlash. Key stakeholders are now attacking the agency's enforcement program as illegitimate and a growing number of respondents charged in APs have...

In 2007, Senate Democrats blocked President Bush from making recess appointments by conducting thirty-second pro forma sessions over the Senate’s Thanksgiving holiday. Senators deployed the maneuver throughout the remainder of the Bush administration, and again against President Obama. Though...