SEC Release Nos. 33-10276: aka If you ever wondered what the fines were for insider trading and other financial malfeasance, well now you know.
On November 2, 2015, Obama signed the “Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015″, which was implemented with the SEC earlier this month.
What is the “Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015″?
In the US, the legislative body passes laws and the executive body enforces. There are various federal executive agencies that impose standard fines when individuals, groups, or companies break the law. Starting in 1990, the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 made is so the fines would increase automatically with inflation rather than relying on congress to continually legislate updates for federal fines. The 2015 Act updated how the calculations were done.
Starting in June 2016, the SEC had a Interim rule on penalty updates, but it wasn’t until Jan. 6th, 2017 that the SEC published SEC Release Nos. 33-10276, which goes through all the fines.
At most, this could increase SEC fine collection amount by $21 million, but that requires prosecution rates to stay the same and that the SEC actually collects all fees, which historically it hasn’t so the SEC does not foresee this leading to any real increase in their funding.
Quoting the SEC:
“The benefit provided by the inflationary adjustment to the maximum CMPs is that of maintaining the level of deterrence effectuated by the CMPs, and not allowing such deterrent effect to be diminished by inflation. The costs of implementing this rule should be negligible because the only change from the current, baseline situation is determining potential penalties using a new maximum dollar amount. “
Anyway, if you were curious into what the fees are for various forms of financial malfeasance, you can look them up at https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2017/33-10276.pdf