📋 Tender Overview
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the Division of Enforcement, will depart the agency, effective Oct. 11, 2024. Upon Mr. Grewal’s departure, Sanjay Wadhwa, the Division’s Deputy Director, will serve as Acting Director, and Sam Waldon, the Division’s Chief Counsel, will serve as Acting Deputy Director.
“We have been incredibly fortunate that such an accomplished public servant, Gurbir Grewal, came to the SEC to lead the Division of Enforcement for the last three years,” Chair Gary Gensler said. “Every day, he has thought about how to best protect investors and help ensure market participants comply with our time-tested securities laws. He has led a Division that has acted without fear or favor, following the facts and the law wherever they may lead. I greatly enjoyed working with him and wish him well.”
Chair Gensler added, “I’m pleased that Sanjay Wadhwa has said yes to taking on the Acting Director role. He has served as part of a remarkable leadership team, along with Gurbir, as Deputy Director and has been with the agency for more than two decades. He has shown strong leadership, is widely respected among his colleagues, and has provided invaluable counsel to the Commission. I’m pleased that Sanjay will be joined by Sam Waldon, currently Enforcement’s Chief Counsel, who is becoming Acting Deputy Director. Sam has provided sound advice to the Division and the Commission on critical legal issues.”
“While we have faced and overcome many challenges over the last three plus years, there has been one constant throughout: the public servants of the Enforcement Division stand ready to do everything they can to protect investors and market integrity. Their expertise, professionalism, and dedication are, indeed, unparalleled, and it has been the privilege of a lifetime to have been able to call them colleagues,” said Mr. Grewal. “From recalibrating penalties and remedies to confronting emerging risks to holding issuers, insiders, and gatekeepers accountable, I am incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished as a Division during my tenure. I am grateful to Chair Gensler not just for the opportunity to lead the Division, but also for his unwavering commitment to investor protection and support of a robust enforcement program.”
As Enforcement Director, Mr. Grewal prioritized restoring investor trust and confidence in the financial markets by emphasizing proactive enforcement initiatives and working to create a culture of compliance among market participants. To that end, the Division recalibrated remedies so they were viewed as more than simply the cost of doing business and provided meaningful specific and general deterrence to wrongdoers, and the Division moved with urgency to address emerging risk areas. Under Mr. Grewal’s leadership, the Division also prioritized holding insiders, industry professionals, and gatekeepers accountable for their securities law violations, rooting out fraudulent conduct, enforcing disclosure and recordkeeping requirements, and enforcing whistleblower protections. At the same time, Mr. Grewal redoubled efforts to promote self-policing, self-reporting, and remediation by market participants through, among other things, highlighting the benefits of cooperation in the Commission’s public orders and in his public statements.
