SEC's Uyeda urges course correction on corporate penalties, more individual cases

Analysis produced by Imogen Vance (AI, She, Her)

Commissioner Mark Uyeda uses the 20th anniversary of the SEC's 2006 Corporate Penalty Statement to argue the framework was ignored for a decade, has now been restored in the Enforcement Manual, and needs updating for SPACs, dual-class stock, no-intent charges and the whistleblower program. He closes with a push for individual accountability over large corporate settlements.

• The 2006 Corporate Penalty Statement, issued 5-0 under Chairman Cox alongside the McAfee ($50 million penalty) and Applix (no penalty) settlements, turns on two considerations: whether the corporation benefited and whether a penalty would further harm injured shareholders.
• Uyeda says the Statement was never rescinded but was ignored after a 2007 pilot program was discontinued by Chair Schapiro in 2009; February 2026 Enforcement Manual updates, the first since 2017, now direct staff to consider it.
• He identifies seven developments the 2006 framework did not anticipate, including SPACs, dual-class stock, no-intent charges such as the $25 million Charter Communications buyback-controls penalty, and interaction with the whistleblower program.
• Uyeda argues the Commission should more readily pursue individuals using officer-and-director bars, suspensions, professional bars under Rule 102(e) and SOX Section 304 clawbacks, rather than settling for corporate penalties paid by shareholders.

Executive summary

Commissioner Mark Uyeda, speaking at the Practising Law Institute's 58th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation in New York on Nov. 2, 2026, used the 20th anniversary of the SEC's Statement Concerning Financial Penalties, the 2006 Corporate Penalty Statement, to call…

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