In this episode of Regulatory Oversight, co-host Stephen Piepgrass sits down with Jay Dubow and Ghillaine Reid, co-leaders of the firm’s Securities Investigation + Enforcement practice, to explore how the SEC’s enforcement agenda is evolving under Chairman Paul Atkins and what that means for public companies, financial institutions, and their executives.
On May 19, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rule amendments that would significantly simplify executive compensation disclosure requirements for many public companies. The proposed rules would split public companies into large accelerated filers and non-accelerated filers. Non-accelerated filers would be subject to scaled executive compensation disclosure rules, similar to those presently applicable to emerging growth companies (EGCs), and they would not be required to conduct Say-on-Pay and related advisory votes. The SEC estimates that approximately 81% of public companies would be non-accelerated filers subject to these scaled disclosure rules. The remaining public companies would be large accelerated filers, representing the majority (about 93.5%) of public float, and they would remain subject to substantially the same executive compensation disclosure rules that currently apply to large accelerated filers.
On May 29, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) took a set of actions that together open a path for digital asset perpetual contracts to trade on registered U.S. platforms by classifying them as futures, rather than swaps, for the first time. The Commission approved the first such product, issued a policy statement on how it will review future perpetual contracts, and its staff issued separate guidance addressing foreign-listed perpetuals and customer margin and 24/7 trading. Perpetual contracts, often called perpetual futures, are futures-style instruments without a fixed expiration date, and they have until now traded almost entirely on offshore crypto trading platforms.
On May 12, we wrote about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) longstanding “no‑deny” settlement policy heading “for a crossroads” at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Supreme Court. That crossroads arrived quickly. Just six days later, the SEC announced that it has rescinded Rule 202.5(e), the informal rule that, since 1972, conditioned settlement of an enforcement action on a defendant’s agreement not to publicly deny the Commission’s allegations. In its press release, the SEC said the policy had set the agency apart from most other federal regulators and may have created the misimpression that the Commission was trying to insulate itself from criticism, and it emphasized that ending the policy will give the SEC greater flexibility to resolve cases while preserving resources and speeding relief to investors.
On Thursday, May 14, at 10:30 a.m., the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee will meet in executive session to mark up H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (the CLARITY Act). The session is a key procedural step for this comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation that, if enacted, would create a new federal framework for how crypto markets are regulated, supervised, and policed for fraud, illicit finance, and other purposes.
On May 8, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quietly sent a final rule titled “Rescission of Policy Regarding Denials in Settlements of Enforcement Actions” to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review under Executive Order 12866. Although the text of the rule has not yet been released, the title strongly suggests that the SEC is preparing to roll back or significantly revise its decades‑old “no‑deny” settlement policy. That development arrives just as a major challenge to the policy is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
On April 10, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) jointly issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) setting out their view of how sanctions, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance requirements should apply to permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. The agencies also issued an accompanying fact sheet.
Troutman Pepper Locke’s Securities Investigations and Enforcement team counsels and defends clients through all stages of securities enforcement proceedings. Our attorneys have served in key government agencies and regulatory bodies, and bring their insight to bear in each representation. The team includes a former branch chief of the Division of Enforcement at the SEC, former enforcement lawyers, regulators and government attorneys, assistant United States Attorneys and former assistant attorneys general, as well as in-house counsel for public companies. Our lawyers and practice have been identified as leaders in the field by publications such as the Legal 500, SuperLawyers, Benchmark Litigation, and Chambers USA.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) April 7, 2026, press release on its fiscal year (FY) 2025 enforcement results is less about numbers and more about a philosophical reset. Under Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, who served as acting chair prior to the chairman’s confirmation, the SEC is expressly stepping back from what it characterizes as “regulation by enforcement” and volume‑driven metrics, and recentering on what it has described as fraud, investor harm, and congressional intent. For registrants and other market participants, this shift has direct consequences for how enforcement risk is likely to be assessed going forward.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to implement the broad-based principles set out in the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act for determining when a state-level regulatory regime for “state qualified payment stablecoin issuers” is “substantially similar” to the federal regulatory framework. That determination is the gateway for state-chartered, nonbank stablecoin issuers with up to $10 billion in outstanding stablecoins to operate primarily under state oversight rather than as federally supervised “permitted payment stablecoin issuers.” Comments will be due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.