In closely timed public appearances, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins and Enforcement Director Margaret Ryan delivered remarks outlining the agency’s direction under their leadership. Their comments offer the first significant guidance on the SEC’s enforcement priorities for 2026.
On February 11, 2026, Ryan made her first public remarks since becoming enforcement director. Her speech underscored the SEC’s commitment to a targeted enforcement approach and a renewed focus on fraud and market integrity.
Over two days on Capitol Hill, Chairman Atkins testified before the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. His testimony placed those same enforcement themes within a broader agenda to modernize corporate disclosure, reduce regulatory “friction,” and establish a federal framework for emerging areas such as crypto markets.
Back to Basics: Fraud as the Focus
Atkins’s remarks to the Senate and House committees highlighted the SEC’s continued focus on “first principles” for SEC enforcement—namely, “rooting out fraud and remedying investor harm.” Atkins pointed to enforcement actions brought during his tenure that have centered on securities offering fraud, accounting fraud, and breaches of fiduciary duty by investment advisers.
He further emphasized that “fraud is fraud whether it happens in the crypto world or in paper certificates,” clearly signaling continued SEC enforcement interest in the digital assets markets. Those enforcement efforts have been strengthened by the SEC's Cross-Border Task Force (discussed in a previous Alston & Bird advisory here).
Ryan echoed these principles, describing the SEC’s desire to “return to the basics” in enforcement, focusing on high-impact cases that protect retail investors and market integrity and pursuing misconduct involving fraud, accounting irregularities, insider trading, and market manipulation as opposed to non-fraud compliance violations. She explained that not every technical regulatory compliance issue will warrant enforcement, but that enforcement actions remain appropriate when compliance breakdowns lead to investor harm, create market risk, or confer an improper benefit.
In line with remarks Atkins made last year (discussed in a previous Alston & Bird advisory here), Ryan also underscored the Enforcement Division’s commitment to fairness in the Wells process, including ensuring that respondents have a meaningful chance to address key factual or legal issues prior to an enforcement recommendation. As examples of this commitment, Ryan identified key procedural guardrails, including a four-week submission window and the guaranteed attendance of senior SEC Enforcement Division leadership at every Wells meeting.
Ryan also emphasized that the SEC expects respondents to engage fairly with the agency, and that any circumvention of the process, including efforts to unnecessarily prolong investigations, will not be tolerated.
An Aligned Approach
The SEC’s “return to the basics” approach to regulatory enforcement tracks messaging and policy change elsewhere in the white-collar enforcement landscape. For example, throughout 2025 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) made changes to policy and practice as part of what Acting Chair Caroline Pham described as getting “back to basics” in CFTC regulatory and enforcement work.
Similarly, last year the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), long viewed as the DOJ’s thought leader for corporate criminal enforcement policy, issued guidance committing to “focus, fairness, and efficiency” in its corporate enforcement efforts (discussed in a prior Alston & Bird client advisory here), signaling a more targeted approach to case selection and a commitment to transparent processes and efficient operations. While the DOJ’s revised Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy sets forth a clearer route to obtaining a declination than current SEC guidance does, Ryan’s characterization of non-fraud matters as an area of opportunity for “thoughtful resolutions” suggests a similar SEC receptivity to remediation-forward outcomes.
Looking Ahead
The SEC’s enforcement leaders have spoken: The agency will focus primarily on securities law violations that result in investor harm, while remaining open to submissions regarding culpability and mitigation, and will ensure the involvement of senior leadership. Although its enforcement emphasis will be on fraud and market manipulation, the SEC will also enforce compliance violations, particularly those that involve registrant fiduciary obligations and/or generate improper gains.
This approach aligns SEC enforcement with other federal authorities in white-collar investigations and enforcement, portending a more coordinated federal posture in securities and commodities fraud enforcement. In this environment, companies should ensure their compliance programs are calibrated to prioritize early identification of conduct resulting in potential investor harm to mitigate this heightened enforcement risk.
If you have any questions, or would like additional information, please contact one of the attorneys on our White Collar, Government & Internal Investigations team.
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