Sec, Securities And Exchange Commission | featured news

The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White as the new head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency tasked with policing Wall Street and writing new rules of the road for financial markets.

Companies can use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to unveil key information about their operations as long as they’ve told investors where to look for it, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday.

President Obama will nominate Mary Jo White, a former prosecutor and one-time director of the Nasdaq stock exchange, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a White House official said Thursday.

After Mary Miller, a senior Treasury Department official, removed her name from consideration, Sallie L. Krawcheck, a long-time Wall Street executive, has emerged as a potential front-runner to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mary L. Schapiro, who overhauled the Securities and Exchange Commission after the financial crisis, announced on Monday that she was stepping down as chairwoman of the agency. Elisse B. Walter, a commissioner at the S.E.C., is expected to be named to take over the post.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has paid its first award under a new program designed to spur people to tip off the regulator to large frauds.

Facebook has filed papers for what's expected to be the largest initial public offering ever to come out of Silicon Valley and one of the largest in U.S. history. Ending months of breathless speculation, the 8-year-old social networking company has submitted registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that set preliminary goal of $5 billion. Facebook had discussed raising as much as $10 billion. Final pricing will not be set for months, and the size of the IPO probably will increase with investor demand. The filing sets the stage for an IPO in May.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil fraud charges against six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying they misled the government and taxpayers about risky subprime mortgages the mortgage giants held during the housing bust....

A federal judge on Monday struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying he couldn't tell whether the deal was fair and criticizing regulators for shielding the public from the details of what the firm did wrong.

The Securities and Exchange Commission faces hurdles proving wrongdoing at credit-rating agencies, the SEC's enforcement chief said in an interview shortly after it was learned that his office may sue Standard & Poor's for breaking securities laws.