More Reg BI Actions May Be Ahead: SEC Enforcement Chief

More enforcement actions related to Regulation Best Interest may be on the horizon, according the agency’s enforcement director, Gurbir Grewal.

During an exchange with House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., at a hearing held Tuesday by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets, Grewal stated when speaking of the agency’s first Reg BI enforcement action that the agency’s exam division has made “other referrals.”

Waters highlighted the SEC’s first Reg BI action and then asked Grewal to “describe your experience in enforcing Regulation Best Interest [and] also address, if at all, how broker-dealers have changed their practices, how are they better managing conflicts of interest, for example? Do they offer the same kinds of products, and get paid at the same level, … prior to Reg BI?”

The SEC brought its first Reg BI-related action on June 16 by charging registered broker-dealer Western International Securities Inc. and five of its registered reps with violating Reg BI. The brokers violated best-interest obligations when they recommended and sold an unrated, high-risk debt security known as L Bonds to retirees and other retail investors, the SEC said.