To protect the wealthy.
Pay a small fine that represents a tiny portion of your ill-gotten gains and move on without any repercussions.
Pay a small fine that represents a tiny portion of your ill-gotten gains and move on without any repercussions.
Hardly.
The SEC cannot say you are guilty without proving it within the bounds of the legal system. This "non admission of guilt" is a way to sidestep a lengthy, costly legal process and get a result for the impacted parties sooner rather than much much later.
Pretty much ends there. The SEC can say you are civilly liable, and they can assess fines in some situations and initiate civil litigation in others based on that.
But if they think you are guilty, that’s an issue they hand off to the Justice Department.
If the SEC says you are liable or guilty in any way for anything, you can contest it via the legal system. That's what the legal system is for...
Again, this "non admission of guilt" sidesteps everything and cuts straight to the end result.
In this specific case, it literally means the SEC either felt their case wasn't strong enough to guarantee an outcome, or litigating the case would become exceedingly costly and unproductive - again without a guarantee of an outcome.
"Non admission of guilt" payments guarantee a speedy outcome. That is the entire point.
It’s a settlement agreement, and, yes, that’s the whole point – they resolve a situation subject to civil litigation without litigation, but leaving the settling party no worse off than if they had fought and had the agreement contents instead imposed as a remedy. Requiring admissions as part of a settlement would not do that, settling would then in many cases be worse than losing.