Wall Street’s regulators don’t want to lose their home court advantage.
Andrew Ceresney, the head of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission, defended the government on Tuesday against reports the regulator was funneling more cases through its own administrative courts — in essence stacking the deck against defendants.
But the move is not about gaining an advantage — it’s about saving Uncle Sam money, Ceresney said.
“For several matters, the commission often but not always chooses to file in the administrative forum, largely because of efficiency,” he said at an industry event Tuesday.
The ramping up of administrative adjudications comes after the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act granted the SEC the authority to bring any person to administrative proceedings, Ceresney said.
He added that most of the cases brought before the SEC-picked judges are “settled actions,” and that “more than 60 percent of litigated cases were filed in federal district court.”
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the SEC has been ramping up the number of cases it sends to administrative proceedings rather than federal court, in part because the SEC wins 90 percent of the time in the former venue.