The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that it has appointed Sanjay Wadhwa as the deputy director of the division of Enforcement. Before this promotion, he was working as the Senior Associate Director of the Division of Enforcement in the New York Regional Office (NYRO).
The SEC has the task of making sure that the markets, ranging from the old stock markets to the latest crypto markets, behave in the right manner within the said regulations and are free from any sort of financial crime and the enforcement division is directly responsible for monitoring the market activity and financial activity around the markets and launch investigations to prevent as well as root our wrongdoing in the markets.
“Over the hundreds of investigations he has overseen, Sanjay has helped the SEC root out wrongdoing, pursue charges against those who seek to manipulate or defraud investors, and partner with criminal authorities to prosecute bad actors,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “Sanjay’s breadth of experience and dedication to protecting investors make him well qualified to serve as Deputy Director of the Enforcement Division. I look forward to working with him in his new role.”
Wadhwa had joined the SEC in 2003 and has served in a variety of roles including Deputy Chief of the Market Abuse Unit and the Assistant Director in NYRO. In the NYRO, as the Co-Head, he led a team of 150 resources to enforce federal securities laws and was responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the enforcement division over there.
“It has been an honor to serve alongside the SEC’s esteemed Enforcement staff for the past 18 years,” said Mr. Wadhwa. “I look forward to working with Gurbir and the entire Enforcement Division to oversee investigations and litigation matters to help protect investors and promote integrity in the marketplace by holding wrongdoers accountable.”
He comes into this senior role in the SEC at a time when new instruments like cryptos are gaining in prominence and they have brought in an entirely new challenge to the SEC in terms of their classification and regulation. The old laws and monitoring systems surrounding the fiat currencies are unlikely to work in the digital world which makes the job of the SEC personnel that much more difficult as they need to understand the intricacies of how these new instruments work and then regulate them accordingly and ensure that these regulations are strictly adhered to by the market participants.
