On April 7, the SEC released its enforcement results for fiscal year 2025, which ended September 30, 2025. The SEC reported 456 total enforcement actions during the fiscal year, including 303 standalone actions and 69 follow-on administrative proceedings, and obtained orders for monetary relief totaling $17.9 billion. The results do not include 1,095 additional matters that were investigated and closed without enforcement action. After excluding monetary relief that the SEC deemed satisfied in separate non-SEC actions and judgments from a single long-running action involving an $8 billion Ponzi scheme, the agency reported approximately $1.4 billion in disgorgement and prejudgment interest and $1.3 billion in civil penalties. The SEC also returned approximately $262 million to harmed investors, awarded approximately $60 million to 48 whistleblowers during the fiscal year, and received a record 53,753 tips, complaints, and referrals — nearly 19 percent more than the prior year.

As previously covered by InfoBytes, Democratic senators probed the SEC chairman on, among other things, the delayed release of the data and the dismissal of crypto-asset related enforcement actions. In announcing the results, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated the agency had “put a stop to regulation by enforcement” and refocused its enforcement program on fraud, market manipulation, and abuses of trust. The SEC characterized several categories of actions brought by the SEC under the prior administration — including 95 books and records violation cases totaling $2.3 billion in penalties, seven crypto-asset registration cases and six “definition of a dealer” cases — as representing a “misallocation of Commission resources” that identified no direct investor harm. The SEC stated it would prioritize fraud in its many forms, including repaying investors’ losses when harmed and holding individual wrongdoers accountable, noting that nearly nine out of 10 standalone actions filed under the current leadership involved individual charges.