1. On June 29, 2025, two workers for the SEC’s EDGAR system were charged with insider trading. Federal prosecutors allege that Justin Chen, 31, and Jun Zhen, 29, exploited their privileged access to the SEC’s EDGAR system to trade ahead of market-moving announcements—pocketing more than $1 million in three months. Between March and June 2025, the pair allegedly sifted through yet-to-be-published documents and bought shares in four small-cap names—Purple Innovation, Ondas Holdings, SigmaTron International, and Signing Day Sports. Prosecutors say Chen, an EDGAR assistant manager, and Zhen, a typeset manager, “purchased shares before the announcements and sold those shares at a significant profit immediately after,” transforming EDGAR’s regulatory pipeline into what one enforcement official privately called “their own minute-perfect trading terminal.” The scheme unraveled when FBI agents arrested both men at JFK Airport moments before they boarded a flight to Hong Kong. The attempted departure, prosecutors argued in court, underscored their flight risk, leading Judge Vera Scanlon ordering them held without bail. Each faces one count of securities fraud carrying up to 25 years in prison.
2. On June 27, 2025, Ripple Labs announced that it will withdraw its cross appeal against the SEC in a prolonged legal battle tied to the sale of its XRP tokens. The SEC is expected to drop its appeal ending a multi-year long litigation matter.
3. In June 26, 2025, the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (“DERA”) published new reports and data on broker-dealers, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and business development companies (BDCs). The reports provide information about the changes in broker-dealer and M&A activity over time. Regarding broker-dealers, the paper is to provide background information on registered broker-dealers and their activities over the period 2010-2024. The paper provides an analysis of the industry, structure of activity of different types of broker-dealers, and the revenues and expenses of broker-dealers. https://www.sec.gov/files/dera-broker-dealer-activity-2506.pdf
4. On June 25, 2025, Piper Sandler and Stifel Financial asked a judge to free them from “onerous” restrictions from the SEC’s global settlement more than two decades ago with 12 investment banks over analyst conflicts. In a filing in Manhattan federal court, Piper and Stifel said they should not be bound to requirements in a related consent decree, while rivals not subject to the decree are held to looser standards the SEC approved in 2015. The decree imposed a variety of restrictions, including that research and investment banking units be physically separate, with “firewalls” to prohibit most communications between them. Piper and Stifel said the disparate treatment makes it harder to compete with other middle-market banks, as well as large banks that are bound by the settlement but have much larger client bases and are better known globally. They also said the decree hurts the public interest because research may have different protections depending on which bank issued it, and smaller companies may struggle to raise capital because compliance costs mean some banks cannot afford to provide research coverage. The $1.5 billion settlement in 2003 and 2004 addressed a scandal over analysts issuing positive research to help Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, the defunct Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and others win investment banking business.
5. On June 25, 2025, the SEC voted to extend the compliance date to June 30, 2026, for the amendments to Rule 15c3-3 (the broker-dealer customer protection rule) that the Commission adopted on Dec. 20, 2024. The amendments require certain broker-dealers to increase the frequency of required reserve computations under Rule 15c3-3 from weekly to daily. The compliance date for these required daily reserve computations was originally Dec. 31, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-95-sec-extends-compliance-date-help-broker-dealers-fully-test-implement-daily-reserve-computation
6. On June 25, 2025, the SEC, FINRA, and MSRB recently announced that registration is open for the 2025 Joint Compliance Outreach Program, which is a a two-day event to discuss compliance and regulatory matters directly with municipal market professionals. The program will be held virtually via Zoom on November 18th and 19th. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-93-regulators-hold-outreach-event-municipal-market-professionals
7. On June, 23, 2025, the SEC announced that Kevin Muhlendorf will be the agency’s new Inspector General, effective July 28, 2025. Mr. Muhlendorf is a former SEC and Justice Department attorney who for the past nine years has been a partner in the white-collar defense and government investigations practice at Wiley Rein LLP in Washington D.C., where he focused on representing individuals and entities in criminal and civil securities enforcement matters. Acting Inspector General Katherine Reilly will return to her role as a Deputy Inspector General. In private practice, Mr. Muhlendorf regularly conducted sensitive internal investigations and provided compliance counseling for clients. Mr. Muhlendorf’s previous law enforcement experience includes six years as a Trial Attorney and Assistant Chief in the Securities and Financial Fraud Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section, where he investigated and tried complex fraud cases in jurisdictions across the country. Mr. Muhlendorf was a Senior Counsel in the SEC Enforcement Division from 2004 to 2010. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-92-kevin-muhlendorf-named-sec-inspector-general
8. On June 17, 2025, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against Andrew Nash, founder, and over 50% owner of El Capitan Advisors, Inc. (“El Capitan”), a registered investment adviser. Nash misappropriated $4.6 million in funds from an El Capitan client to purchase a private residence for Nash and then falsified bank documents to hide the theft of these client funds. Nash caused El Capitan to file Form ADV reports with the SEC in 2022 and 2023 which falsely stated that El Capitan had over $3.6 billion and over $7.4 billion in assets under management, respectively. In fact, El Capitan managed far less than $1 billion in assets. Nash was barred. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/ia-6886.pdf El Capitan was ordered to pay disgorgement of $10,700,000 and prejudgment interest of $1,840,291. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/ia-6887.pdf
9. On June 16, 2025, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against William Fretz, Jr., John Freeman, Covenant Capital Management Partners, L.P. (“CCMP”), and Covenant Partners, L.P. (“Covenant”). Fretz and Freeman raised approximately $7.3 million through the sale of Covenant partnership interests (the “Fund”) to more than 50 limited partners by misrepresenting to investors that Covenant would primarily invest in direct marketing companies, only pay the adviser performance fees if certain conditions were met, and that Fretz and Freeman would act as fiduciaries in the best interests of the Fund. Fretz and Freeman, through CCMP, used the majority of Covenant investors’ funds for their own purposes and benefit, in breach of their fiduciary duties. Fretz, Freeman, CCMP and Covenant was jointly and severally ordered to pay disgorgement of $5,476,928, prejudgment interest of $353,582 and a civil money penalty of $500,000. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/34-103276.pdf
10. On June 13, 2025, the SEC announced that Brian Daly will become the new Director of the Division of Investment Management, effective July 8, 2025. Mr. Daly brings decades of experience serving in prominent roles at global law firms and investment management firms while advising fund managers and sponsors on regulatory compliance. For the past four years, he has been a partner in the investment management practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. Prior to Akin, Mr. Daly spent nearly a decade as a partner in the investment management group of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, advising investment advisers and fund managers on legal, compliance, and operational issues and matters. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-88-brian-daly-named-director-division-investment-management
11. On June 13, 2025, the SEC announced that Erik Hotmire will return to the SEC as Chief External Affairs Officer and Director of the Office of Public Affairs, effective June 16, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-90-sec-names-erik-hotmire-chief-external-affairs-officer-director-office-public-affairs
12. On June 13, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit challenging the SEC’s disgorgement powers, turning away an appeal brought by Navellier & Associates Inc. (“NAI”), an investment adviser, and its founding principal, Louis Navellier, who was ordered to pay $32 million after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that Navellier and NAI defrauded clients. This decision supports the SEC’s ability to use disgorgement as a tool in its enforcement actions against those who violate securities laws. NAI argued that the First Circuit’s ruling conflicts directly with a 2020 Supreme Court decision holding that the SEC can seek to recover ill-gotten gains but only if they’re awarded to victims. NAI said the SEC exceeded its authority in the case at hand since the supposed victims suffered no pecuniary harm. The SEC argued the First Circuit ruled correctly that the SEC could pursue disgorgement even without showing investors suffered financial harm, drawing a distinction from damages meant to compensate victims for losses. Further, the SEC urged the Supreme Court to skip the petition as NAI’s investor clients did suffer losses stemming from investment advisory fees, which would be remedied by the disgorgement, the government. This matter stemmed from a SEC litigation release where the SEC alleged that Navellier and his firm defrauded their clients and prospective clients, misleading them about the performance track record of investment strategies that NAI offered. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/supreme-court-skips-firms-challenge-to-sec-disgorgement-power and https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2020/comp24744.pdf
13. On June 12, 2025, the SEC withdrew the following rule proposals issued between March 2022 and November 2023 that would have applied to investment managers:
- safeguarding of advisory client assets
- outsourcing certain services or functions
- conflicts of interest associated with the use of predictive data analytics
- enhanced disclosures regarding environmental, social and governance
- cybersecurity risk management
The withdrawal of the above rules means that the SEC would need to re-propose the rules in order to adopt rules relating to these areas. https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/final/2025/33-11377.pdf
14. On June 12, 2025, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against Surage Perera, who was associated with a dually-registered broker-dealer and investment adviser. Perera, through his unregistered investment adviser firm Janues, defrauded at least one advisory client out of millions of dollars by lying about investment opportunities and strategies; misappropriating the advisory client’s money by, in part, not purchasing the securities she subscribed to through Janues and using a substantial portion of her money to engage in high volume, highly leveraged trading in other securities; lying to her about non-existent investment profits; and concealing large trading losses. Perera was barred. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/34-103246.pdf
15. On June 11, 2025, the SEC together with the CFTC voted to extend the compliance date until Oct. 1, 2025, for the amendments to Form PF that were adopted on Feb. 8, 2024. The compliance date for these amendments was originally March 12, 2025, but was previously extended to June 12, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-86-further-extension-form-pf-amendments-compliance-date
16. On June 10, 2025, the SEC announced that it will immediately resume processing new and pending registration applications of investment advisers with their principal office and place of business in Switzerland. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-83-sec-resume-processing-registration-applications-swiss-based-investment-advisers
17. On June 10, 2025, the SEC announced that Natasha Vij Greiner, Director of the Division of Investment Management, will depart the agency effective July 4, 2025, after more than 23 years of public service. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-84-natasha-vij-greiner-will-conclude-her-tenure-director-investment-management
18. On June 4, 2025, the SEC published a concept release soliciting public comment on the definition of foreign private issuer. Foreign private issuers benefit from certain accommodations and exemptions from the disclosure and filing requirements of the federal securities laws. The concept release solicits public input on whether the definition of foreign private issuer should be amended in light of significant changes in the population of foreign private issuers since 2003. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-82-sec-solicits-public-comment-foreign-private-issuer-definition
19. On June 4, 2025, the SEC obtained a final judgment by consent against New York-based investment adviser Brite Advisors USA, Inc. (“Brite USA”). By way of background, in November 2023, the SEC charged Brite USA with failing to comply with requirements for the safekeeping of client assets and for failing to disclose material risks and conflicts of interest associated with Brite USA’s recommendations to clients to use a related firm as a custodian. The SEC’s complaint alleged that Brite USA advised on about $400 million of client assets maintained by a related custodian, Brite Advisors Pty Ltd. (“Brite Australia”), a financial services company under common control with Brite USA. The complaint alleged that since 2019, Brite USA failed to comply with the custody rule requirement that it obtain an internal control report as to the safeguarding of client funds and securities maintained by Brite Australia. In addition, Brite USA breached its fiduciary duties to its clients by failing to fully disclose conflicts of interest and risks to client assets resulting from Brite Australia’s borrowing of millions of dollars using Brite USA’s client assets as collateral to provide operational funding to Brite USA and other related companies. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/litreleases/2025/judg26329.pdf and https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/complaints/2023/comp25900.pdf
20. On June 3, 2025, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against North East Asset Management Group, Inc., a registered State investment adviser and Gregory Zandlo, president and its sole principal, owner, and employee, for engaging in cherry-picking when they disproportionally allocated certain profitable trades to accounts for North East Asset, Zandlo, and individuals related to Zandlo and allocated unprofitable trades to other North East Asset advisory clients. North East Asset was ordered to pay disgorgement of $10,609 and prejudgment interest of $2,260. Zandlo was ordered to pay disgorgement of $80,599, prejudgment interest of $17,172 and a civil money penalty of $141,000. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/34-103173.pdf
21. On June 3, 2025, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against Ronald Pallek, acted as an investment adviser, for conducting a fraudulent securities offering in which he raised and pooled more than $1.54 million from at least 87 investors, promising to double investors’ money in only a year using an “Iron Condor” options trading strategy. Pallek raised and pooled money from investors to engage in securities options trading, promising, in exchange for compensation, that he would pay investors from the trading profits and exercising sole discretion over the subsequent trading. Pallek misrepresented the risks of his options-trading strategy, lied to investors about how he would use their funds, and falsely told investors he had sufficient reserve funds to cover any potential losses. Pallek also sent investors false account statements purporting to show highly successful trading, when, in reality, he lost approximately $991,000. Pallek also used some investor funds to make Ponzi-style payments to early investors. Pallek was barred. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2025/ia-6882.pdf
22. On June 2, 2025, the SEC charged New Line Capital, LLC and its owner and managing member David Nagler, for breaching their fiduciary duties and defrauding their advisory clients by making false and misleading fee disclosures and failing to disclose related conflicts of interest. New Line and Nagler falsely disclosed that they would “take care to assure” that New Line’s annual advisory fees would not exceed 2% of a client’s assets under management when, in fact, they did not take steps to limit advisory fees to 2% and charged numerous advisory clients more than 2%. New Line and Nagler misleadingly disclosed that New Line “may” offer hourly fee services when, in fact, New Line was providing such services without informing clients about those charges and without disclosing the financial conflicts of interest arising from their charging of hourly fees. This matter is being litigated. https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-26319
23. On June 2, 2025, the SEC announced that Natalia Díez Riggin has been named Senior Advisor and Director of the agency’s Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. Ms. Riggin has been serving as Acting Director since joining the SEC in January. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-81-natalia-diez-riggin-named-senior-advisor-director-legislative-intergovernmental-affairs