On February 9, Acting SEC Chair Lee announced she was restoring the delegated authority of Enforcement Division senior officials to issue subpoenas to compel document production and sworn testimony without the need of a Formal Order of Investigation by the full Commission.
Until 2009, the SEC could only issue compulsory processes (for document production and testimony) under a Formal Order of Investigation issued by the Commission. In 2009, however, then-Chair Mary Shapiro delegated that authority to the Director of Enforcement for a trial period of one year. The Final Order, No ...
SEC Commissioners Piwowar and Gallagher dissented from a recent Commission Opinion sanctioning an investment adviser's use of misleading historical data purporting to validate an asset-allocation model. Agreeing there was a violation, Piwowar and Gallagher nevertheless dissented, criticizing "rulemaking by opinion:"
Instead, the majority opinion creates from whole cloth specific requirements for advertisements that include the word "backtest." Despite the lack of any statutory or regulatory definition of what constitutes a "backtest," the majority opinion ...