SEC Enforcement Division Director Gurbir S. Grewal will leave the agency later this month. Division Deputy Director Sanjay Wadhwa will step in to serve as acting enforcement director.
Chair Gary Gensler appointed Grewal as enforcement director in June 2021 (he was also named as one of WealthManagement.com Ten To Watch in 2022). During his tenure, the enforcement division has authorized more than 2,400 “enforcement matters,” resulting in more than $20 billion in disgorgement and penalties. Grewal is leaving the SEC to join a private practice, according to Reuters.
In a statement on his departure, which will take place on Oct. 11, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said the commission was “incredibly fortunate” Grewal opted to join the agency.
“Every day, he has thought about how to best protect investors and help ensure market participants comply with our time-tested securities laws,” Gensler said. “He has led a division that has acted without fear or favor, following the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”
Grewal touted the staff at the enforcement division, saying they’d done everything to protect investors despite facing “many challenges over the last three-plus years.”
“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,” he said.
Grewal was Gensler’s second choice for the position after his first pick, Alex Oh, resigned several days after taking the job when a federal judge questioned her conduct on a case in her private practice career.
Before joining the commission, Grewal served as New Jersey Attorney General, a position he’d held since 2018. He’d also been the Bergen County Prosecutor and was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Jersey (where he was chief of the Economic Crimes Unit), as well as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York’s Eastern District.
The commission highlighted Grewal’s leadership in bringing more than 100 actions “addressing widespread noncompliance” in the crypto space. Under Grewal, the SEC also brought its first enforcement actions related to Regulation Best Interest violations and the first charges related to the updated marketing rule in August and September 2023.
Under Grewal, the commission prioritized recordkeeping requirements, particularly regarding off-channel communications, such as text messaging and WhatsApp.
In September 2022, the commission fined some of the biggest firms in the industry more than $1.1 billion to settle charges of “widespread and longstanding failures” from firms overseeing reps’ business comms on WhatsApp and other off-channel platforms (the defendants included Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and UBS).
The division has brought numerous related actions in the years since; this past August, more than two dozen firms (including Raymond James and LPL) agreed to pay more than $392 million in penalties to settle similar charges.
Grewal's acting replacement, Sanjay Wadhwa, joined the enforcement division as a staff attorney in 2003. Sam Waldon will take over from Wadhwa as acting deputy director for the division; he’s currently the Enforcement Division’s chief counsel.
