By Chris Prentice and Marisa Taylor
WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's top enforcement official, who left abruptly last week, had clashed with agency leaders over the direction of its enforcement program, including the handling of cases with ties to President Donald Trump and his family, according to three people familiar with the matter.
SEC Enforcement Division Director Margaret Ryan resigned last Monday after just over six months on the job, Reuters was
the first to report. Her resignation email, seen by Reuters, did not say why she was leaving. Ryan declined to comment when reached by phone and text.
Two of the people said Ryan wanted to be more aggressive in pursuing charges for fraud and other misconduct including in cases that touched the president's circle, but faced resistance from SEC chair Paul Atkins and other top Republican political appointees.
A spokesperson for the SEC said that, under Atkins, the agency made enforcement decisions based on facts, the law, and policy, not on politics: "In every case, the Commission has faithfully applied the federal securities laws. Debate and discussion among our lawyers and other staff is common and encouraged."
White House spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One case that sparked tension involved cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, a major backer of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial venture, and another involved Tesla boss Elon Musk, a big donor to Trump's campaign who briefly served as the president's special adviser, the two people said.
Reuters granted the sources anonymity to discuss confidential matters related to regulatory enforcement.
One of Sun's attorneys and a spokesperson for Musk's law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, declined to comment.
'OUR MISSION IS TOO IMPORTANT'
The tensions between Ryan and top SEC officials, which have not previously been reported, shed additional light on how the SEC is policing corporate America under Atkins, who has repeatedly criticized the agency as opaque and unpredictable in enforcement dealings.
The SEC has also pivoted away from big corporate cases and a crypto crackdown by previous Democratic leaders, to focus on bread-and-butter fraud and manipulation cases such as Ponzi schemes and insider trading.
The SEC chair sets the broad enforcement agenda and, along with other politically appointed commissioners, votes on disciplinary actions and penalties recommended by enforcement staff. But under Trump's second administration, the chair and commissioners have sought more control, revoking enforcement staff authority to open formal probes and requiring they seek commissioners' approval.
Ryan, a former Marine and military judge with little experience in securities law, previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
She was seen as an unusual pick to lead the SEC's enforcement team of more than 1,000 people and was not accustomed to the SEC's lengthy and protracted process for building consensus around charges and penalties, said two SEC enforcement officials.
She nevertheless won over many career staff by backing them in their dealings with individuals and companies they were investigating, three other sources familiar with the matter said.
At an internal meeting last year, she criticized defense attorneys - including Brad Bondi, a Paul Hastings partner who was also Atkins' former counselor - for what she saw as attempts to go above career staff's heads on enforcement matters, two of the sources said. Approaching top SEC officials about enforcement cases is, however, permissible in certain circumstances.
Bondi, who is Attorney General Pam Bondi's brother, did not respond to Reuters questions sent by email and text message. A Paul Hastings spokesperson did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
In a February speech, Ryan said some aspects of the SEC's enforcement program warranted fixing, but added that the agency was committed to pursuing "quality" enforcement actions.
"Our mission – of protecting investors; maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitating capital formation – is too important," she said at the time.
'STAFF HAVE DISAGREEMENTS'
Among the cases that three of the people familiar with the tensions said were a source of frustration for Ryan was an SEC settlement disclosed this month to resolve charges that the watchdog's previous Democratic leadership brought against Sun.
In 2023, the SEC sued the crypto entrepreneur and three of his companies, alleging Sun generated more than $31 million through fraudulent trades. In a deal negotiated by Brad Bondi and other lawyers, one of Sun's companies paid $10 million to settle the fraud charges, though it did not admit or deny the SEC's findings. The agency dismissed the other related charges.
An SEC enforcement official said the Sun matter followed the usual process, and it was their understanding that Ryan ultimately supported the settlement. Ryan's signature was not on the court documents.
Separately, March court filings showed that the SEC is in talks with Musk to settle charges that he waited too long to disclose in 2022 that he had amassed a large stake in Twitter, which he later bought and renamed X. That allowed Musk to buy more shares at artificially low prices, it said. The agency filed the charges a week before Trump took power in January last year.
During a March 4 court hearing, the details of which were first reported by the FT, a lawyer for Musk said those talks were with officials above the SEC staff working on the case, the transcript shows.
While it is common for the agency to settle litigation out of court, it had strong cases against both Sun and Musk and a good chance of winning tougher penalties in court, according to securities lawyers who had been tracking the proceedings.
One of the SEC enforcement officials said the Sun case had been complicated, however, by changes in crypto guidance and pending crypto legislation that could raise risks if the SEC continued to fight it in court.
"There may be instances when staff have disagreements with commissioners — this is the case historically — but ultimately only the commissioners as officers of the United States vote on enforcement matters," the SEC spokesperson said.
(Additional reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Michelle Price and Edmund Klamann)
