US SEC to offer more buyouts to supervisors, memo says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will offer supervisors incentives to leave the agency or to take demotions, according to memos seen by Reuters, the latest in a series of voluntary programs reshaping the agency.

The SEC has decided to provide “supervisor-graded employees with voluntary options” following an agencywide review, the SEC’s chief operating officer said in a Sept. 2 email to staff.

The agency’s latest round of buyout programs follows similar efforts earlier this year that led to an exodus of hundreds of staff, according to agency data obtained through a public records request. One of the voluntary programs includes a one-time lump sum payment of $50,000 according to a second memo sent on Sept. 2 and seen by Reuters. The SEC is also offering supervisors voluntary demotions in an effort to reallocate staff, according to the email.

SEC Charges Pennsylvania Resident and His Companies with $770 Million Ponzi Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Daryl F. Heller of Pennsylvania and his companies, Prestige Investment Group, LLC and Paramount Management Group, LLC, with operating a multi-year Ponzi scheme that resulted in investor losses of approximately $400 million.

According to the complaint, from January 2017 through June 2024, Heller and Prestige raised more than $770 million from approximately 2,700 investors, many of whom are retail investors, to invest in ATMs operated by Paramount. The complaint alleges that Heller used his control of Prestige and Paramount to create the false impression that they were running a successful, nationwide ATM network and paying investors fixed monthly distributions from income earned from ATM transaction fees and related charges. In reality, as alleged, the defendants misrepresented the size and profitability of the ATM network and paid distributions to investors primarily using money from new investments and high-interest, short-term loans. Heller also misappropriated more than $185 million of investor funds for his own benefit, including for a beach house and his other businesses, according to the complaint.

Reforming SEC’s Wells Process Can Promote Transparency, Fairness

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division has long protected US markets by rooting out fraud and other misconduct. But despite many changes in the enforcement function, the Wells process—the mechanism through which prospective respondents are given notice of potential charges and allowed to explain why action is unwarranted—remains largely the same.

Since the 1970s, the commission has created specialized units, flattened the organizational chart, and embraced new theories in response to high?profile scandals and market events. Enhanced remedies have developed through the Insider Trading Sanctions Act of 1984, the Remedies Act of 1990, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act in 2002, and Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010.

Revisiting the Wells process periodically makes sense for the staff, the agency, and respondents, and wouldn’t weaken enforcement. Instead, it would enhance the consistency and reliability of charging decisions, improve perceptions of fairness, and reduce the risk that the agency’s extraordinary but necessary powers are misused.

SEC Reviews Quantum-Safe Roadmap for Digital Assets

A proposal submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Crypto Assets Task Force warned that quantum computing could shatter the cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the broader digital asset ecosystem unless safeguards are implemented.

A written submission to the task force titled the Post-Quantum Financial Infrastructure Framework (PQFIF), was authored by Daniel Bruno Corvelo Costa, one of many individuals and entities that have provided written input.

The framework outlines a roadmap for transitioning the cryptographic foundations of digital assets, such as Bitcoin and Ether to quantum-resistant standards. it warns that trillions of dollars in digital assets could be exposed if today’s encryption methods collapse under quantum attacks.

London’s bullion market to trial digital gold

The World Gold Council is seeking to launch a digital form of gold, a move that could revolutionise London’s $900bn physical market for the precious metal by creating a new way to trade, settle and collateralise bullion.

This new format would create the ability to “pass gold digitally around the gold ecosystem, as collateral, for the first time”, said David Tait, chief executive of the World Gold Council, an industry body representing gold miners, in an interview with the Financial Times.

While many investors value gold precisely because of its physical nature and its lack of counterparty risk, seeing it as a haven asset, Tait argues that bullion must be digitised to broaden its market reach.

A Brief History of the New York Stock Exchange’s Ups and Downs

On the surface, the New York Stock Exchange bears little resemblance to its original form, but one attribute remains unchanged—resilience. Since the market’s founding, its history has been marked by a string of traumatic upheavals followed by renewed stability and growth.