Since 1971, the SEC has routinely insisted that defendants who settle their cases promise to make no statement confirming nor denying any wrongdoing. In effect, a defendant who settles cannot defend themselves against any of the allegations. Furthermore, FinanceFeeds.com states that 96 percent of all SEC cases are settled before trial. Of those that do go to trial, the SEC sends many to its own in-house judges, winning over 90 percent of the cases.

In 2018, the SEC accused Musk of fraud when he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. As many companies do, Musk and Tesla settled the lawsuit by paying the SEC a $40 million fine and agreeing to have his tweets reviewed by Tesla’s lawyers. However, unlike so many other entrepreneurs and firms, Musk continued to speak out openly, defiantly, and sometimes crudely, against the SEC.

Over the last few months, we have explored concerning instances of apparent regulatory overreach by the SEC. We have also explored the SEC’s egregious whistleblower program, and most recently, the concerning similarities between the SEC and illegal “protection rackets.” Today, we will continue our look at the SEC’s potentially abusive regulatory actions through a deeper dive into the ongoing case of the SEC vs. Ripple Labs Inc.

Last month, we took a closer look at the SEC’s whistleblower program and how it incentivizes individuals to come forward with nearly any claim against their employer through the use of kickbacks. This month, as we continue our analysis of the entity’s overreach, we will examine the SEC itself and how its operations may be more akin to other questionable entities.

On September 15, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it paid a $110 million award to an informant through its whistleblower program, an amount second only to the $114 million award issued in October 2020. Over the past decade, over $1 billion has been awarded to whistleblowers–a considerable amount for a new program that was considered a kickback and a conflict of interest only a few short years ago.

According to the Good Jobs First Violation Tracker, more than $30 billion has been paid to the SEC and more than $1.3 billion has been paid to FINRA by the financial services industry since the year 2000, with names like Bank of America, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs all among the top ten offenders. If these large, established institutions with teams of highly paid lawyers so regularly run afoul of the SEC and FINRA’s regulations, what hope do smaller businesses have?