SEC Has Toughened Enforcement Efforts, Agency Says
National News
The Securities and Exchange Commission's chief enforcement official says the agency has toughened its efforts to shut down financial misconduct after failing to act quickly in the cases of R. Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff.
SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami says in testimony prepared for a Senate hearing that "we have moved aggressively" to put in place reforms recommended by the SEC inspector general. The IG found that the SEC knew since 1997 that Stanford likely was operating a Ponzi scheme but waited 12 years to bring fraud charges against the billionaire.
Khuzami also tells the Senate Banking Committee the SEC is working to provide "maximum recovery" to investors hurt in Stanford's alleged $7 billion fraud.
Stanford has been in federal prison since his indictment in June 2009 on criminal charges that his international banking business was really a pyramid scheme. He is disputing the charges. He faces a life sentence if convicted.
The SEC didn't bring civil fraud charges against Stanford until February 2009. SEC Inspector General David Kotz said in a report issued in April that "institutional influence" in the enforcement division was a factor in the agency's repeated decisions not to conduct a full investigation.
The report found that SEC enforcement officials discouraged cases that couldn't be resolved quickly. And it said an SEC enforcement official who helped quash investigations later legally represented Stanford.
The SEC's office in Fort Worth, Texas, had conducted "examination after examination" of Stanford's business over eight years, but "merely watched the alleged fraud grow, and failed to take any action to stop it," Kotz testified at Wednesday's hearing.
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USCIS Will Begin Accepting CW-1 Petitions for Fiscal Year 2019
On April 2, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting petitions under the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2019 cap. Employers in the CNMI use the CW-1 program to employ foreign workers who are ineligible for other nonimmigrant worker categories. The cap for CW-1 visas for FY 2019 is 4,999.
For the FY 2019 cap, USCIS encourages employers to file a petition for a CW-1 nonimmigrant worker up to six months in advance of the proposed start date of employment and as early as possible within that timeframe. USCIS will reject a petition if it is filed more than six months in advance. An extension petition may request a start date of Oct. 1, 2018, even if that worker’s current status will not expire by that date.
Since USCIS expects to receive more petitions than the number of CW-1 visas available for FY 2019, USCIS may conduct a lottery to randomly select petitions and associated beneficiaries so that the cap is not exceeded. The lottery would give employers the fairest opportunity to request workers, particularly with the possibility of mail delays from the CNMI.
USCIS will count the total number of beneficiaries in the petitions received after 10 business days to determine if a lottery is needed. If the cap is met after those initial 10 days, a lottery may still need to be conducted with only the petitions received on the last day before the cap was met. USCIS will announce when the cap is met and whether a lottery has been conducted.