The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) obtains billions of dollars each year in monetary sanctions from wrongdoers. As a part of the SEC’s enforcement responsibilities, it issues orders and administers judgements ordering securities violators to, among other things:

• Disgorge, or pay back, ill-gotten gains in order to return the funds to harmed investors;

• Pay civil monetary penalties (see the calculation of civil monetary penalties); and

• Pay interest (prejudgement and potentially post judgement).

The calculation of monetary sanctions is critically important to SEC whistleblowers. Under the Dodd-Frank Act’s SEC Whistleblower Program, the SEC will issue awards to whistleblowers who provide original information that leads to a successful SEC enforcement actions with total monetary sanctions exceeding $1 million. A whistleblower may receive an award of between 10% and 30% of the total monetary sanctions collected, which can lead to substantial awards. The largest SEC whistleblower awards to date are $50 million, $39 million and $37 million. 

Year-By-Year Total SEC Sanctions Since FY ’04

Annually, the SEC announces the total monetary sanctions obtained from successful enforcement actions. The table below identifies the total illegal profits that securities violators were required to disgorge and the total penalties they were required to pay.

For more information on SEC sanctions, see a recent speech by the SEC’s Division of Enforcement: Remedies and Relief in SEC Enforcement Actions.