In a year that saw in the downfall FTX the most spectacular company collapse since the 2008 market crash, regulators had already been kept busier than usual with enforcement actions.
Both the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees Wall Street, and the North American Securities Administrators Association, which represents state and provincial regulators in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, released reports this year showing big increases in fines and restitution obtained from companies and professionals who had gone astray. The SEC obtained more than $6.4 billion in civil penalties, disgorgement and prejudgment in its 2022 fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30 this year. That was the highest figure ever for the SEC, showing a 50% increase from the previous fiscal year.
Not to be topped, NASAA released a
Although the collapse of FTX overshadowed every other financial scandal this year, there were plenty of smaller cases that kept regulators busy. Here were some of the bigger ones.