Pravin Rao was quoted in the Compliance Week article, "Five-Year Limit Placed on SEC Disgorgement Penalties" regarding the ruling affecting the SEC caseload and priorities.

Pravin Rao, a partner with law firm Perkins Coie and a former assistant U.S. attorney and SEC Enforcement branch chief, expects that the ruling won’t have much of an effect on the majority of cases the SEC is dealing with. In fact, it may help the SEC prioritize cases.

“At the Justice Department, we always joked that there were very few ways that you could get disciplined or fired as a prosecutor,” he says. “One of them was blowing past the statute of limitations. When you are a prosecutor it is drilled into you that you have five years, 10 years for bank fraud.”

The SEC’s ongoing enhancements in technology now allow it “to process a huge amount of data faster than it did before,” Rao says. The better, faster use of data in supervision, examinations, and investigations actions means that the new time limits on disgorgements “may be the new normal, but I don’t see it being a sea change.”