Sep. 29, 2022
September 29, 2022 Goal 1: A key weakness in achieving Goal 1 is the lack of meaningful enforcement actions against repeat corporate and individual offenders. We often see individuals from small investment or trading firms prosecuted and receive jail time, revocation of securities licenses and stiff penalties. They are therefore defacto unable to re-offend in the same manner. However, we do not see the same enforcement actions against large institutions where senior management who are responsible for oversight along with the those directly responsible for violations are allowed to remain in leadership positions and active participants in the market only to continue the violations again. Often times the only enforcement action against large institutions is a monetary fine that equates to a small percentage of the profit derived from a violation and accounts to almost a \"commission\". Institutions like JPMC, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and others that are repeatedly fined for violations, and treat those f ines as \"cost of doing business\" should be subject to losing the privilege of doing business if they repeatedly violate laws or abuse counterparties. For repeat violators, they should have to forfeit ALL profits related to a violation, and be subject to a long term, multi-year, suspension of their ability to participate in whichever market they've repeatedly violated laws in. In order to protect, you must be able to respond with force. Goal 3: The revolving door between industry regulators and industry participants needs to be closed. For too long regulators have been incentivized to ignore violations with the prospect of later receiving lucrative employment positions with the very industry participants they are charged with regulating. There needs to be a cooling off period during which regulators are barred from working in the industry they regulate after leaving employment with the SEC. Much like private employers enforce \"Non-compete\" clauses against employees who leave, the SEC should do the same to ensure that ex-regulators do not become competitors of the very agency they once served. Another approach to this would be forcing industry participants who hire former SEC staff and regulators to be subject to a higher level of reporting and scrutiny by the SEC, such that there is greater transparency in acknowledgement of the benefit they gain by hiring someone who has intimate knowledge of the very agency charged with regulating them.