Virtu Settles SEC Case Over Access to Client Data, Will Pay $2.5 Million

Virtu to Pay $2.5 Million in SEC’s Client Trade Data Case

Market-making giant Virtu Financial Inc. will pay the SEC more than $2 million to resolve an enforcement action over policy lapses that allegedly gave employees access to confidential information behind customers’ trades.

The Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission action had alleged that “virtually all employees” at subsidiary Virtu Americas LLC could access the trade data, which included customer names, securities, execution prices, and volume.

Judge John G. Koeltl in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday accepted a proposed judgment from the SEC and Virtu, including the $2.5 million civil penalty.

SEC tightens scrutiny of Chinese firms in US markets, says chairman

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, said the agency is tightening scrutiny of Chinese firms in U.S. markets, stressing the need to ensure “our rules… are complied with and that our laws are complied with,” particularly as companies “operating in China” list shares in America.

“That’s very important for us to focus on and not lose sight of,” Atkins told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo from the New York Stock Exchange in an interview that aired Wednesday. “We’re looking at this whole area and we’ll be on top of it.”

Say Goodbye to the Billable Hour, Thanks to AI

Ironically, what began as an effort to promote transparency and efficiency for legal work has since become a tyrannical arrangement with both senior people and junior associates motivated to rack up hours to maximize profits. It spread from law firms to accounting firms, consultants and most other professional services firms as the dominant mechanism for value exchange.

All of this could be about to change.

When an AI system can review thousands of contracts in minutes rather than weeks, draft complex documents in seconds rather than hours or generate strategic analyses near-instantaneously, the time component becomes almost meaningless. More fundamentally, as AI handles routine cognitive work, the remaining human contribution shifts toward judgment, creativity and relationship management—the value of which bears little relationship to time expended.

The economic absurdity becomes clear when we consider that firms adopting AI most successfully would paradoxically see revenue collapse under hourly billing, even as they deliver superior results more efficiently. This misalignment between value creation and revenue generation makes the billable hour’s demise inevitable.