Late Friday the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed in a statement what the New York Times first reported Friday morning: It has changed its policy on the boilerplate “neither admit nor deny” language in most SEC settlement agreements. But don’t get too excited. The change will affect only cases in which the defendant has admitted guilt or been convicted in a related criminal action. In settlements with those criminal defendants, the SEC will delete “inconsistent” concessions and instead “recite the fact and nature of the criminal conviction or criminal [admission] in the settlement documents.” In other words, defendants whose guilt has already been established under the higher standard of criminal law can no longer evade responsibility for civil charges. Which leads, of course, to the question of why it took the SEC 40 years to change such a ridiculous policy. Read Reuters report here.
