SEC Uses Data Analytics To Identify And Punish Late Form Filers

Can merely late filing of "routine" forms get you in trouble with the SEC? Yes, at least if it happens too often. On Wednesday the SEC announced charges and financial penalties totaling $2.6 million against 28 officers, directors, and major shareholders for repeated late filing of SEC forms reporting holdings and transactions in company stock, and six publicly traded companies for contributing to filing failures by insiders or failing to report their insiders' filing delinquencies.

Notably, these cases did not involve allegations of intentional wrongdoing or short-swing trading; the late filings appear to have been merely inadvertent violations of certain reporting requirements under the securities laws for which the SEC sought to hold the respondents strictly liable.  Thus these cases seem to reflect the SEC's "broken windows" approach to enforcement under Commissioner Mary Jo White, which seeks to prosecute even the smallest infractions.