Elaine C. Greenberg, Chief of the Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit and Associate Director of the Philadelphia Regional Office, is leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission after more than 25 years of service.
Ms. Greenberg will step down at the end of July for the private sector. She has served in dual roles at the SEC for the past three and a half years, leading the Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit since its creation in January 2010 and heading the Philadelphia Regional Office’s enforcement program since December 2006.
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"Elaine’s leadership of the unit and her efforts on behalf of investors have been groundbreaking and have had a tremendous impact on the behavior of participants in the municipal securities and public pensions markets," said SEC Commissioner Elisse B. Walter, who led the Commission’s recent review of the municipal securities market.
"Elaine has had a distinguished career at the SEC and the depth and breadth of her knowledge and experience is impressive. Through her expert lawyering, creativity and tenacity, she has made major contributions to the agency by bringing numerous significant enforcement actions," said Andrew J. Ceresney, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.
Ms. Greenberg said, "I have been very fortunate to have served alongside such talented and dedicated colleagues over these many years and am proud and appreciative of our collective achievements on behalf of the nation’s investors and the securities markets."
The Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit, comprised of staff in ten SEC offices, oversees enforcement in the $4 trillion municipal securities market and the $3 trillion public pension market. As the unit’s inaugural Chief, Ms. Greenberg determined its objectives, recruited, selected, and trained staff members, set priorities, and established five areas of focus — offering and disclosure fraud, tax and arbitrage-driven fraud, pay-to-play and public corruption violations, public pension accounting and disclosure violations, and valuation and pricing fraud.
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By GlobalDataUnder Ms. Greenberg’s leadership of the unit, the Commission brought precedent-setting actions including:
- In the Matter of State of New Jersey and In the Matter of State of Illinois, the first and second SEC enforcement actions against states, charging them with misleading bond investors about the funding of the states’ pension systems
- In the Matter of the City of Harrisburg, the first action charging a municipality with fraud for misleading statements made outside of its securities disclosure documents
- In the Matter of Banc of America Securities, SEC v. UBS Financial Services Inc., SEC v. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, SEC v. Wachovia Bank, N.A., and SEC v. GE Funding Capital Market Services, Inc., charging five major financial institutions for their roles in a series of bid-rigging schemes involving the reinvestment of bond proceeds
- In the Matter of Goldman, Sachs & Co., the first "pay-to-play" action involving undisclosed in-kind non-cash campaign contributions to the then-Massachusetts state treasurer while he was a candidate for governor to obtain municipal underwriting business
- SEC v. Kwame M. Kilpatrick, et al., charging the former Detroit mayor, former Detroit treasurer, and investment adviser to Detroit’s public pension funds for their roles in a "pay-to-play" scheme
- In the Matter of Wells Fargo Brokerage Services, LLC, et al., alleging improper sale of complex asset-backed commercial paper issued by structured investment vehicles backed by high risk mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations
- SEC v. Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., et al., and In the Matter of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, actions against two firms for their roles in the sale of $200 million of unsuitably risky investments to five Wisconsin school districts
In addition, Ms. Greenberg assisted with a project that culminated in the SEC’s Report on the Municipal Securities Market, provided input on legislative and rulemaking efforts, including the investment adviser pay-to-play rule, and worked with the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy on Investor Bulletins and with the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations on National Examination Program Risk Alerts.
The SEC enforcement actions brought under Ms. Greenberg’s leadership as Associate Director for the Philadelphia Regional Office include:
- SEC v. BP p.l.c., charging the oil and gas company misled investors by filing reports to the SEC that significantly understated the rate at which its Deepwater Horizon rig was spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico
- SEC v. Douglas V. DeCinces, Joseph J. Donohue, Fred Scott Jackson and Roger A. Wittenbach, and SEC v. James V. Mazzo, David L. Parker and Eddie C. Murray, charging former Major League players and others with insider trading prior to a merger of Advanced Medical Optics and Abbott Laboratories
- SEC v. Matthew H. Kluger and Garrett D. Bauer, and SEC v. Kenneth T. Robinson, charging a corporate attorney, a Wall Street trader, and their middleman, with a long-running insider-trading scheme that generated more than $32 million in illegal profits
- SEC v. Nicos Achilleas Stephanou, et al., an action against Wall Street professionals for insider trading ahead of corporate acquisitions
- In the Matter of Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, charging it failed to provide best execution of customers’ retail orders for OTC securities by programming its automated trading system with embedded undisclosed mark-ups and mark-downs
- SEC v. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., alleging it misled investors about the liquidity risks associated with auction rate securities
- SEC v. National Lampoon, Inc., et al., charging seven individuals and two corporations with scheming to manipulate the market for publicly traded securities in exchange for kickbacks
