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Until a permanent replacement is appointed, Ceresney's deputy
director, Stephanie Avakian, will preside over the Enforcement
Division, the SEC said on Thursday,
Ceresney is the seventh top official at the SEC to announce his
departure since Trump won November's election.
Since then, the SEC has been hit with a wave of resignations,
led by the announcement that SEC Chair Mary Jo White plans to
step down at the end of the Obama administration.
Trump has yet to nominate a new SEC chairman, who in turn will
be in charge of hiring division directors, including one for
enforcement.
Trump is considering Debra Wong Yang, a former U.S. attorney for
the federal court district headquartered in Los Angeles, for the
top SEC job. Other names that have surfaced include former SEC
Commissioner Paul Atkins and former SEC General Counsel Ralph
Ferrara.
Ceresney joined the SEC in April 2013 after working with White
as a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton. He previously was a
federal prosecutor in New York's Southern District.
He presided over the filing of nearly 3,000 enforcement actions
at the SEC, including one against Barclays PLC <BARC.L> for
making misrepresentations about its dark pool. He also oversaw a
foreign bribery case against JP Morgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> in
connection with its hiring practices and a major case involving
hackers who broke into newswire services to steal corporate
financial information that could be used to make profitable
trades.
Ceresney was also instrumental in developing a settlement policy
that requires defendants in some instances to admit to
wrongdoing - a departure from the typical practice of letting
companies settle without admitting or denying wrongdoing.
In an interview with Reuters, Ceresney said he is not sure what
he will do next, but plans to take a few months off to spend
time with his family.
He said, among others, that he is most proud of the SEC's case
against Bank of America <BAC.N> over its misuse of customer cash
and the SEC's first-ever foreign bribery case against a hedge
fund, Och-Ziff Capital Management Group <OZM.N> and its CEO and
CFO.
"We took what I think was a strong program, and made it much
stronger," Ceresney said. "I think we're recognized now as an
aggressive, tough but fair regulator."
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Dan
Grebler)
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