Gary Gensler was sworn in as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17, 2021. Chairman Gensler has promised to strengthen transparency and accountability in the financial markets. Under Chairman Gensler, we expect the SEC’s Division of Enforcement—led by Gurbir Grewal, who began work at the agency on July 26—to be better resourced, highly active and more aggressive. In this post, we review enforcement activity from the first 100 days of Chairman Gensler’s term to identify preliminary indications of trends we can expect as the new regime’s enforcement initiatives gain steam.

Enforcement scrutiny of SPACs

Over the past year, US securities markets have experienced an exponential rise in the use of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) as an alternative to traditional initial public offerings and direct listings. SEC staff members have published a stream of investor alerts, bulletins and other warnings, which are summarized here, about potential disclosure issues surrounding SPACs. Although the number of SPAC registrants has recently slowed, Chairman Gensler and SEC staff have continued to voice concerns about the SPAC boom.

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