The Securities and Exchange Commission assessed $3.945 billion in disgorgement and penalties across 821 enforcement actions in fiscal 2018, the agency’s enforcement division said today in its annual report, Reuters reports.
That’s a slight uptick in activity for the SEC, which reported 754 actions in fiscal 2017, totaling $3.7 billion in ill-gotten gains and penalties.
“The Enforcement Division has been and continues to be extremely successful in its efforts to deter bad conduct and effectively remedy harm to investors,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton in a statement.
But the agency acknowledged in its 2018 report that a “significant amount” of the higher level of disgorgement and penalties came from a single case, from which the SEC is expected to only receive a fraction of the recovered funds.
