JAY CLAYTON

The proposed disclosure requirements only seek information that investors want.

The lawyer and his clients have made millions by exposing one Wall Street crime after another. But are they changing the industry?

The influence of social media on investors, spurring investments in meme stocks and cryptocurrencies, is likely permanent, says former SEC chairman Jay Clayton.

Meme stocks like AMC, GME and CLNE may come and go, but the Reddit retail trader revolution has shifted the balance between investing risk and reward.

The Senate has approved President Joe Biden’s choice to lead a key agency overseeing Wall Street.

Leon Black, Chairman, CEO and Director, Apollo Global Management, LLC, speaks at the Milken Institute's 21st Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, May 1, 2018. Apollo co-founder Marc Rowan took over as CEO, as the investment management firm said in January that he would do. Apollo had said in January that the 69-year-old Black would leave as CEO in July. But the firm also had said at that time that Black would remain as chairman. Referring to Rowan, Black said: "Marc has seamlessly transitioned into the CEO role and I am confident Apollo will soar to new heights under his leadership."

He was asked about the roiling stock-trading drama involving GameStop shares that has spurred clamor for tighter regulation of Wall Street. The GameStop episode prompted lawmakers to raise concern about the business model of Robinhood, the online trading platform that hosted a wave of trading in GameStop. If confirmed to the SEC post, Gensler said, he would work to strengthen transparency and accountability in the markets. Biden’s selection of Gensler to lead the SEC signals a goal of turning the Wall Street watchdog agency toward an activist role after a deregulatory stretch during the Trump administration. The GameStop episode has bolstered political momentum toward tighter regulation of the securities markets, though Republican lawmakers and regulators generally will oppose new rules.

Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton told CNBC on Friday he does not believe the Reddit-sparked trading frenzy in GameStop shares represented an illegal pump-and-dump scheme. After the stock price has been pumped up, a trader will dump the shares they own at the artificially high price. Clayton said that from what he can tell, people who were trading GameStop shares were pretty clear about the motivation. GameStop shares had been one of the most shorted on Wall Street in January. During the frenzy, GameStop shares faced upward pressure from two sides.

Wall Street is concerned about the Yellen regulator super summit, and with good reason, market watchers say. "The Street should be worried," said Jamie Selway, former head of electronic brokerage at ITG and now an investment advisor. The SEC has a three-fold mission: protect investors; maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. The commission already has put Wall Street on notice that it is concerned investors may not have been protected. Does the GameStop trade, largely instituted by the Reddit trading community, amount to abusive or manipulative trading?

In this photo illustration of the ripple cryptocurrency 'altcoin' sits arranged for a photograph on April 25, 2018 in London, England. Ripple, the fintech company best known for cryptocurrency XRP, has said it expects to be sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that it violated investor protection laws. The SEC is set to bring a lawsuit against Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen. It will claim that the company violated laws against selling unregistered securities when it sold XRP to investors. "XRP is a currency, and does not have to be registered as an investment contract," Garlinghouse said.

As he prepares to leave office at the end of the year, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton said one of his biggest achievements has been leveling the playing field for smaller investors. "One of the things we've tried to do is make sure our Main Street investor can sit side by side with professional investors in those opportunities," Clayton told CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin during a "Squawk Box" interview. Following tradition in which SEC chairs traditionally step down when the presidency changes hand, Clayton said he will leave at the end of the 2020 though his full term runs through June 2021. Clayton closes his term by lending support for amending the 10b5-1 trading plan to provide for a "cooling off" period when company executives can sell their shares. Doing so, he told CNBC, "gives people greater confidence that you haven't tried to time the market."

Clayton, a former Wall Street lawyer who has headed the Securities and Exchange Commission as the financial markets top regulator during the Trump administration, is leaving the position at years end. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)WASHINGTON – Jay Clayton, a former Wall Street lawyer who has headed the Securities and Exchange Commission as the financial markets’ top regulator during the Trump administration, is leaving the position at year’s end, the SEC announced Monday. One of President Donald Trump’s earliest appointments in 2017, Clayton has presided over a deregulatory push to soften rules affecting Wall Street and the financial markets, as Trump pledged when he took office. Before his appointment, Clayton was a partner in the prominent law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where he did significant legal work for Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs and other financial giants. That background led several Democratic senators to seek assurances from Clayton regarding potential conflicts of interest during his confirmation process.

"Working alongside the incredibly talented and driven women and men of the SEC has been the highlight of my career," Clayton said in a statement. SEC chairs traditionally step down when an administration ends, and Clayton's resignation comes two months before Joe Biden will take over as president. Senior Democratic SEC Commissioner Allison Lee likely will be named to serve as acting chair, Reuters reported. President Donald Trump named Clayton to head the SEC and has since said he intended to nominate him to serve as U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Though some critics said Clayton was too easy on corporate America, his tenure featured a high level of enforcement actions.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton is telling corporate America it needs to get much more vigilant on security. In an interview Monday on CNBC's "Power Lunch," stressed that significant cybersecurity threats remain, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and election season. "Cybersecurity incidents are on the rise, and it's something we all need to continue to pay attention to," Clayton said. In general, Clayton said that companies and employees alike need to practice what he calls "cyber hygiene." He said the uncertainty caused by the pandemic was likely a big driver in the cyber threats.

SEC chairman Jay Clayton testifies during a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee's subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets on June 25. Many investments available to mom-and-pop investors aren't appropriate for that audience to buy, and should instead be held by sophisticated investors, the head of the SEC said Tuesday. "To the extent its short-term, flavor-of-the-day, flavor-of-the-month type things, those things make me nervous," Clayton added. Such rules will help protect the 50 million American households invested in capital markets, as well as future investors, Clayton said. Consumer advocates believe the rules don't significantly alter the broker-client relationship and allow them and their firms leeway to recommend high-cost investments.

WASHINGTON The ousted former U.S. attorney for Manhattan will sit down with the House Judiciary Committee next week for a closed-door interview as the panel investigates politicization in the Justice Department. Berman left his job last month after an extraordinary standoff in which he refused to resign until Trump himself fired him. Attorney General William Barr had attempted to force him to resign under pressure, but he refused to go. The Judiciary Committee is investigating the politicization and is scheduled to hear from Barr himself at the end of the month. The White House nominated Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, a well-connected Wall Street lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor, to replace Berman.

(Brendan Smialowski/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON President Donald Trumps pick to be the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan won't say whether he would withdraw from overseeing matters related to Trump in his current job, as Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, or if confirmed as U.S. attorney. Under questioning from Democrats, Clayton pledged to be independent as U.S. attorney but would not commit to stepping aside from matters related to Trump or his associates. Clayton would not say whether he had talked to anyone at Trumps organization or in his family about the nomination. Under her questioning, Clayton declined to say whether he had approached Trump and Barr about the job or whether they had approached him. But those Democrats have already rejected the nomination and say Clayton should withdraw.

And he had refused to even alert Washington to cases his high-profile department was working on. He was never formally nominated to the post by Trump, despite having been personally interviewed for the job by the president. He eventually consented to leave after Barr said Trump had officially fired him and the second in command of the office would take over. The message to the public from New York Citys government appears to favor certain secular gatherings and disfavor religious gatherings, wrote Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband. Justice Department officials insisted the de Blasio letter played no role and Barr didn't know about Berman's refusal to sign it when he sent out the statement.

The Justice Department moved abruptly Friday, June 19, 2020, to oust Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan overseeing key prosecutions of President Donald Trumps allies and an investigation of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. His statement came hours after Attorney General William Barr said Berman was stepping down from his position. The standoff set off an extraordinary clash between the Justice Department and one of the nations top districts, which has tried major mob and terror cases over the years. Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump's Justice Department of political interference, and those concerns have also been pervasive among some rank and file officials in the agency. But as U.S. attorney, he won over some skeptics after he went after Trump allies, and had a direct hand in other investigations that have angered the president.

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said Monday that the practice of short selling effectively betting that a stock will drop is needed to "facilitate ordinary market trading." "We shouldn't be banning short selling," Clayton told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We did put in place, and not a lot of people know this, an alternative uptick rule [in 2010.] The SEC chairman said the current rule kicks in when a "stock drops 10% from the previous day's close for two days," preventing short selling the bid. "But we believe we're taking care of it with this alternative uptick rule."

Scammers, fraudsters, insider traders, Ponzi schemers, stock spoofers the Securities and Exchange Commission has seen it all. This year, for example, the SEC brought actions against 18 Chinese traders for manipulating the prices of over 3,000 stocks. Nissan was hit with a $15 million fine for false financial disclosures. Altogether, the SEC brought 862 enforcement actions and obtained judgments and orders totaling more than $4.3 billion in disgorgement and penalties in fiscal 2019. The message from Clayton: "We want the bad guys to know we're watching."

Reuters reported last month that SEC Chair Jay Clayton was rethinking some of the changes, which would give the SEC discretion to reduce certain payouts, following a backlash from whistleblower advocates who said the changes would deter insiders from coming forward. The SEC has proposed several changes to the program in a bid to make it more efficient and to speed up issuing rewards. Among them, it has proposed giving staff more latitude when assessing awards and the discretion to reduce certain payouts that would exceed $30 million. Whistleblower proponents say this introduces uncertainty, and have also criticized proposed changes to the way tips are reported, saying they could increase legal costs. Clayton said tips continue to come into the agency, adding: Personally, I think the program has been extremely beneficial to investors and I support it.

Robert Cook, CEO Pay package 2019: $2.5MPay package 2018: $2.9MPay package 2017: $1.45MRobert Colby, EVP and Chief Legal Officer Pay package 2019: $1MPay package 2018: $1.1MPay package 2017: $1.2 Susan Schroeder, EVP, Enforcement Pay package 2019: $880,000Pay package 2018: $965,338Pay package 2017: $838,297Cameron Funkhouser, EVP, Office of Fraud Detection & Market Intelligence Pay package 2019: $793,000Pay package 2018: $819,837Pay package 2017: $914,463 Todd Diganci, EVP, CFO Pay package 2019: $1.3MPay package 2018: $1.3MPay package 2017: $1.4MSteven Randich, EVP, CIO Pay package 2019: $1.08MPay package 2018: $1.3MPay package 2017: $1.08M Bari Havlik, EVP, Member Supervision/Exam Chief Pay package 2019: $965,000Pay package 2018 (half year): $547,649Pay package 2017: N/AThomas Gira, EVP, Market Reg. FINRA execs continue to significantly out-earn officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which unlike FINRA is a government agency. The 2019 incentive compensation amounts represent the actual payment in March 2019 based on 2018 performance. In 2019, Cook contributed $150,000 of his 2018 incentive compensation (less estimated taxes payable by him) to the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. Check out the gallery above to see the total salary and incentive compensation earned by top FINRA executives.