U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw delivered a Brookings Institution speech arguing that the SEC’s current direction is rapidly unwinding prior regulatory and enforcement work and weakening core market safeguards, including through policy changes made without notice-and-comment rulemaking. She framed the moment as “rubble” created by deregulation and presented priorities for a future “rebuild” aimed at restoring investor protections, transparency, and market integrity. Crenshaw identified four trends she said are reshaping the SEC’s approach: devaluing investor rights (including changes affecting investor communications and proxy proposals and allowing issuers to force shareholders into arbitration); moving markets and policymaking “into the shadows” (including plans to reduce the cadence of public-issuer filings, narrowing who must register and what must be disclosed, a shift from lit trading toward dark markets, and possible changes to the Order Protection Rule, alongside greater reliance on staff statements and compliance-date extensions); pushing retail investors and retirement assets into private markets without public-market guardrails; and reducing deterrence through fewer and weaker enforcement actions, lower penalties, diminished whistleblower awards, and dropped cases following presidential pardons or commutations. She also pointed to a 15–20% reduction in SEC staff as a constraint on oversight capacity, and called for reforms that promote fundamentals-based long-term investing, more nimble and interdisciplinary financial regulation, rulemaking that explicitly addresses risks from artificial intelligence, and a reassessment of exemptions such as Regulation D to better support small business capital formation.
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission 2025-12-11
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Crenshaw criticises rollback of investor protections and sets out a regulatory rebuild agenda
SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw criticized the agency's current trajectory in a Brookings Institution speech, highlighting a rollback of regulatory efforts that weaken market safeguards. She identified trends like devaluing investor rights, shifting markets into less transparent areas, and reducing enforcement actions, while calling for reforms to enhance investor protections and market integrity. Crenshaw also noted a significant reduction in SEC staff, impacting oversight capacity.