“What Branch of Government Does the SEC Fall Under?”

“What branch of government does the SEC fall under?”

What a powerful and insightful point, too often lost by practitioners and commentators alike.

I have taught this notion for the past 25 years at Georgetown and Duke law schools. I would begin each lecture by asking the class, “What branch of government does the SEC fall under?” The class would usually pause for a moment, digging into their memory for the third grade lecture explaining “legislative, judicial and executive,” or perhaps even trying to recall a Schoolhouse Rock segment (remember those?) to explain.

No one would ever get the question right because the reality is that the SEC has arguably fallen within all three branches. (Of course, this was before the handy work of Russ Ryan and Nick Morgan, which effectively eliminated the role of SEC ALJ’s).

Trump War on Big Law Exposes Wall Street Firms’ Soft Underbelly

President Trump’s war with Big Law shows firms that depend on rainmaker partners for lucrative corporate deals face greater pressure to settle than those that focus on litigation.

Paul Weiss, Skadden, Willkie, and Milbank built their premiere transactional practices by hiring star lawyers that rivals would likely to poach if the firms entered a protracted battle with the president, said John Morley, a Yale Law School professor. The four firms reached deals with Trump rather than fight him in court over executive orders that threaten client relationships.

“Firms that do a lot of transactional work are most heavily exposed to Trump’s orders because their lawyers leave more easily,” Morley said. “If the people whose practices are affected depart, other people might suffer because of an overall decline in profits.”

The three firms that sued Trump—Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—are best known for litigation practices that aren’t as exposed to poaching, he said. “There’s a team-based apparatus involved in litigating a case that makes it harder to move firms,” Morley said.

LETTER FROM SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN TO SEC OIG, APRIL 2, 2025

I write to ask the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Inspector General (SEC OIG) to determine whether any White House officials or other affiliates of President Trump, his family, or his business partners have had undue influence over recent SEC decisions on crypto-related policies, enforcement actions, and regulations and, if so, whether those individuals have made or stand to profit off those decisions.

On March 6, 2025, I wrote to Mr. David Sacks, President Trump’s “Crypto Czar,” outlining my concerns about the Trump Administration’s efforts to selectively pump the value of certain crypto assets, drop crypto asset-related enforcement actions, and deregulate the crypto asset industry. I also wrote to Mr. Mark Uyeda, Acting Chair of the SEC, on March 21 requesting information about the SEC’s Staff Statement on meme coins, which presented a legal interpretation that could shield the President and First Lady’s coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA, from regulatory scrutiny. Mr. Sacks failed to respond, and Acting Chair Uyeda failed to fully address our concerns, leaving a series of open questions about how the Trump administration has developed its crypto policies. This includes dropping or pausing multiple enforcement actions against crypto companies founded by President Trump’s donors and business partners, including lawsuits against Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, Robinhood, Gemini, Yuga Labs, Consensys, Justin Sun and his companies (including TRON), OpenSea, and Uniswap.

Deutsche Bank Asset Management Unit Pays €25m Greenwashing Fine

Though the German fine was just assessed this past week, in many ways the German proceedings feel like a throwback to an earlier time. The allegations against DWS are a reminder that just a short time ago, firms felt compelled to try to demonstrate their green credentials. The prosecution against DWS is a reminder that some firms, as part of ESG-related virtue signaling, managed to get ahead of the reality of their actual ESG practices and products.

How quickly things can change, though. More recently, many companies (particularly in the U.S.) have experienced an anti-ESG backlash, in which activists and red-state politicians have targeted firms they feel have advanced ESG goals to the detriment of investors’ interests. From a time just a short while ago when companies felt such compulsion to establish their green credentials that some companies engaged in greenwashing, many companies have now found it expedient to forebear from making ESG-related statements, a process that has been called “greenhushing.”

BEYOND THE HEADLINES: A Ground-Level View of Ongoing SEC Operations

Last week: For those who have read stories about DOGE going into the SEC and may be concerned that the regulatory agency is being “dismantled” and will be left without resources to fight fraud, I witnessed quite the opposite in real time. Last week, I participated in a “meet and confer” call with SEC staff on behalf of one of our octogenarian pro bono clients who was sued (in 2021) for a non-fraud Section 5 violation relating to a single transaction in 2017. On my LinkedIn page, you can read my account of the call, which is a valuable illustration of how the SEC’s seemingly bottomless supply of resources is being squandered.