SEC Settlements Trends: 1Q10 Update
16 February 2010
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settled with 205 defendants in its first quarter of fiscal year 2010 (October through December 2009), compared to 181 in the previous quarter and 123 in the first fiscal quarter of 2009, according to NERA's new SEC Settlements Trends report. The report's authors note that the increase in the number of settlements is particularly notable given that the first quarter is not typically one of the more active times for SEC settlements. Indeed, since the 2002 passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act ("SOX"), the first quarter of the year has, on average, seen the fewest number of settlements, while the fourth quarter has seen the most. Furthermore, since SOX, the only other fiscal year in which the number of settlements in the first quarter exceeded that in the prior quarter was 2007.
Although large in number, settlements in the first fiscal quarter were generally modest in amount. Both the average and median settlement were lower than for fiscal year 2009 as a whole. The average settlement for companies whose settlement included a monetary payment was $4.7 million, compared to $10.8 million over the course of the SEC's fiscal year 2009 (FY09). The median company settlement in the first fiscal quarter of 2010 was $0.4 million, compared to $1 million in FY09.
SEC Settlements Trends: 1Q10 Update, historical SEC settlement data, and previous SEC settlement trends reports can be viewed on NERA's Securities Litigation Trends website.
