Securities and Exchange Commission January 18, 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the ``Commission'') is adopting a final rule to implement the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (the ``2015 Act''), which amended the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (the ``Inflation Adjustment Act''), as previously amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (the ``DCIA''). The 2015 Act requires all agencies to annually adjust for inflation the civil monetary penalties that can be imposed under the statutes administered by the agency. Pursuant to this requirement, this final rule performs the first annual adjustment for inflation of the maximum amount of civil monetary penalties administered by the Commission under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and certain penalties under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This adjustment will apply to all penalties imposed after the effective date of this final rule for violations after November 2, 2015. For violations that occurred on or before November 2, 2015, the Commission is reinstating the penalty amounts in the Commission's prior penalty adjustments performed under the DCIA.