A sweeping federal insider-trading prosecution in Boston took a significant step forward on June 1, when 15 defendants pleaded not guilty in a case prosecutors say spanned roughly a decade and touched nearly 30 merger transactions. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston has charged 30 people overall, alleging that lawyers and financial professionals improperly shared confidential deal information that was then used to trade ahead of market-moving announcements.

The case stands out both for its scale and for the professional roles allegedly involved.

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered an important enforcement win to the Securities and Exchange Commission by preserving the agency’s ability to seek disgorgement in civil cases, including in the matter involving defendant Sripetch. For securities litigators and regulated businesses, the ruling is a reminder that even as the Court has shown increasing skepticism toward parts of the administrative state, it is not categorically stripping agencies of meaningful remedial tools.

Disgorgement has long been one of the SEC’s most potent remedies.

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court preserved the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to seek disgorgement without having to show identifiable investor harm in every enforcement action. The ruling is a significant win for the agency, which has long relied on disgorgement to strip alleged wrongdoers of ill-gotten gains in cases ranging from accounting and books-and-records violations to insider trading and broader fraud claims.

The practical takeaway is straightforward: the SEC retains a powerful remedial tool even where the connection between misconduct and a specific victim’s financial loss may be difficult to trace.

The U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s ability to seek disgorgement of ill-gotten gains in fraud cases, preserving a remedy that has long been central to the agency’s enforcement playbook. For securities litigators and compliance professionals, the ruling matters not just as a doctrinal win for the SEC, but as a practical confirmation that one of the agency’s strongest settlement and deterrence tools remains available.

Disgorgement allows the SEC to force defendants to give up profits allegedly obtained through unlawful conduct.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on May 18, 2026 that it has rescinded Rule 202.5(e), ending the agency’s long-standing practice of requiring settling parties not to publicly deny the SEC’s allegations. The change marks a notable shift in enforcement policy and is likely to alter the leverage, messaging, and negotiation dynamics in SEC resolutions going forward.

For decades, the SEC’s settlement framework allowed defendants to resolve cases without admitting wrongdoing in many instances, but it also prohibited them from later publicly disputing the agency’s allegations.