Wall Street shouldn’t relax its standards just because its regulator looks less muscular these days, according to a top federal official, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Securities and Exchange Commission is still policing wrongdoers, even if the volume of its enforcement actions and dollar amount of its fines drop this year, Stephanie Avakian said yesterday. The SEC rejects the premise “that numbers—standing alone —can adequately measure the success or impact of an enforcement program,” said Avakian, the SEC’s co-director of enforcement. “Any assessment that suggests our effectiveness should be measured solely based on the number of cases we bring over any particular period of time is misguided,” Avakian said. The SEC hasn’t revealed its enforcement statistics for fiscal year 2018, which ends on Sept. 30. Total fines ordered through SEC enforcement activity fell 7.2 percent in 2017 to about $3.8 billion, the lowest total since 2013, according to SEC figures.
