Financial regulators don’t agree on Wall Street mea culpas

Wall Street’s self-funded regulator has not been swayed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new policy that some industry wrongdoers should admit to their bad behavior. That may be good for brokers and firms who are targets of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s enforcement actions, but it does not please some investor advocates. SEC Chair Mary Jo White announced last June that the agency would seek admissions of wrongdoing when settling some of its enforcement cases. Previously, the SEC allowed nearly everyone who settled with the agency to sign agreements that did not require admitting to its allegations. Since then, the agency has required admissions in eight settlements, still a small percentage of the SEC case load. More on Reuters here.