Last week, Chairman Paul Atkins delivered the keynote address at the 25th Annual A.A. Sommer, Jr. Lecture on Corporate, Securities, and Financial Law at Fordham Law School, a lecture that he had previously delivered in 2007 when he was an SEC Commissioner. In last week’s speech, Chairman Atkins focused on the importance of the Wells process in the SEC’s Enforcement program. Chairman Atkins noted:

In my 35 years in and around the SEC, I can definitively say that Wells submissions can and do change the trajectory of enforcement actions—not in every case, of course, but in enough cases to matter. The SEC staff do not always get things right the first time, and the Wells process is a valuable procedural device that helps to guard against plain mistakes, extreme legal theories, misinformation, biases, and conflicts of interest. Tonight, I should like to return to this theme and extend it in consideration of how we can improve on and refine our enforcement processes while preserving their original purpose.

In his speech, Chairman Atkins specifies several expectations for the Staff of the Division of Enforcement in the Wells process, noting: “Ours should not be a ‘gotcha’ game.

– Dave Lynn