It is notable that in the EO regarding the weaponization of enforcement, President Trump named the SEC as an agency whose actions should be investigated. As pointed out frequently, many penalties imposed by the SEC were excessive (particularly in the record keeping cases) and many other cases could be interpreted as "political," particularly in the crypto space where they appeared to be based on a policy antagonism toward crypto, rather than on the law.  

While, for the most part…

During his tenure, SEC Chair Gensler attempted to market his program to the public by plain-spoken slogans ("like must be regulated as like"), or by assertions that the rules that the SEC proposed and adopted were simply based on "common sense," no more questionable than installing traffic lights or imposing speed limits.  

Mr. Gensler's ongoing failure to acknowledge the complexities of financial markets resulted in repeated failures, including rules that were impossible to…

The type of communications that advisers are required to maintain are significantly more limited than the records required of broker-dealers. While broker-dealers are generally required to maintain all records relating to their "business," advisers are only required to maintain communications related to certain specified activities, including, however, the giving of recommendations.  

Contracts based on sports events raise a variety of difficult policy questions. From a very big picture standpoint, if sports gambling is legal, then one might reasonably argue that doing so through the medium of commodity option contracts is more economically efficient. On the other hand, do we really want the financial regulators to be spending their own resources policing whether games are being thrown?