The Securities and Exchange Commission’s bread-and-butter enforcement actions focus on accounting fraud. The SEC has a long history in uncovering fraudulent financial reporting schemes. In the early 2000s, Wall Street was...more
Recently, the SEC announced a settlement with Kraft Foods for $62 million and with two Kraft executives for financial reporting misstatements. Along with the corporate settlement with Kraft, the SEC announced proposed...more
- The COVID-19 crisis creates heightened risk of improper financial reporting. - Audit committees can and should take steps to help prevent such frauds. - Audit Committees should maintain the appropriate tone at the...more
Just like the ups and downs of the business cycle, SEC enforcement of accounting fraud cases follow an up and down trend as well. For example, during the financial crisis, SEC enforcement of accounting fraud cases took a back...more
SEC Enforcement Trends for 2016 - Welcome to the latest edition of Fenwick and West’s Securities Litigation and Enforcement Newsletter. In this newsletter, we look at SEC enforcement trends for 2016, starting with a...more
Financial fraud was a staple of SEC enforcement for years. Complex financial fraud cases in which the “books were cooked” to make earnings guidance, increase bonuses or for other reasons were the daily grist of SEC...more
The SEC’s interpretation of the Dodd-Frank whistleblower provisions prevailed in a recent Second Circuit decision, creating a circuit split that could be heading for the Supreme Court. Specifically, the Circuit Court deferred...more
Today I’m blogging from Securities Enforcement Forum 2014, Bruce Carton’s excellent one-day conference, this year being held at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, D.C. The posts will be fairly raw, and certainly not...more
The SEC likes to reorganize, refocus and reenergize. In the last ten years, the SEC has continued to reinvent itself. Whether it has been effective or not, is still up for questioning....more
Ten years ago, Sarbanes-Oxley was the focus of compliance and corporate governance reform. Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted in response to major corporate scandals involving financial reporting fraud and accounting...more
Andrew Ceresney, SEC Co-Director of the Division of Enforcement, recently gave a talk on financial reporting and accounting fraud. Mr. Ceresney reviewed statistics showing declines in restatements and accounting fraud cases....more