The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), led by Chairman Gary Gensler, faces a growing number of legal challenges as it continues its sweeping efforts to regulate Wall Street.
Today, a group of Wall Street hedge funds filed a lawsuit against the SEC seeking to strike down two new rules requiring greater disclosure about short selling and securities lending.
In addition, the SEC is separately fighting lawsuits challenging two other rules regarding private fund regulation and proxy voting advice, and has been warned of potential additional litigation. Gensler’s push to include climate change disclosures in corporate securities filings looks set to spark another high-stakes legal battle.
In addition, Gensler and the SEC have recently suffered major defeats against cryptocurrency companies. The Ripple case and the Grayscale case, which are the symbol cases filed by the institution against the cryptocurrency market, have witnessed many defeats by the SEC, although they have not yet been concluded, and they seem to be concluded against the institution.
The lawsuits filed today by three hedge-fund groups target two related rules that the SEC implemented in October. One rule requires hedge funds to report large short positions, allowing the SEC to publish aggregated, anonymized data to the market. The other rule requires brokers to report detailed information about securities loans made to market participants who typically want to short a stock.
In defending the proposed rules, Gensler noted that short selling and securities lending are two opaque areas of the market that would benefit from increased transparency.
*This is not investment advice.
