Although regulators’ failure to do much about corporate wrongdoing on Wall Street helped trigger the 2008 financial crisis, the Trump administration is scaling back enforcement against Wall Street wrongdoing, a Public Citizen analysis shows.
At the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which protects shareholders from corporate fraud and abuse, the penalties against corporate violators dropped by 68 percent between January 2015 and January 2018, from more than $2.9 billion to about $927 million.
At the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, another powerful bank regulator, penalties dropped by 58 percent. At the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency that, among other things, polices the derivatives market, penalties dropped 80 percent.
“The 2008 crash was a direct result of federal regulators’ failure to enforce the law against an out-of-control Wall Street and financial sector,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “The Trump administration’s refusal to enforce the law – including the important but modest reforms of Dodd-Frank – and impose meaningful penalties against financial corporate wrongdoers, is courting another disaster.
To get the numbers, Public Citizen analyzed the Violation Tracker database assembled by Good Jobs First.
