US SEC Rescinds Policy on Denials of Wrongdoing in Enforcement Actions [View all]
Source: US News & World Report/Reuters
May 18, 2026, at 5:44 p.m.
WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday ended its longstanding practice requiring that people and companies who settle allegations of wrongdoing refrain from publicly refuting the case against them, a practice that some conservative critics had said violated defendants' freedom of speech.
The change, which the SEC had rejected considering under former President Joe Biden, marks a further softening of the regulator's enforcement posture under President Donald Trump. "Speech critical of the government is an important part of the American tradition," SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a statement. The change "ends the policy prohibiting such criticism by settling defendants," he added.
Since 1972, SEC regulations required that, when settling enforcement actions, defendants who do not admit to the agency's accusations also refrain from denying them or causing others to do so. The agency said at the time it wanted to prevent the impression that the allegations could be false.
In the decades since, such neither-admit-nor-deny settlements became standard practice in settling SEC enforcement matters and continued even after former Chair Mary Jo White pledged in 2013 to reduce the agency's reliance on them in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. At that time, some advocates for tougher policing of Wall Street instead called on the agency to extract admissions of responsibility from alleged wrongdoers.
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2026-05-18/us-sec-rescinds-policy-on-denials-of-wrongdoing-in-enforcement-actions
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