SEC’s enforcement director announces departure

Gurbir Grewal, who has served as the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of the division of enforcement since July 2021, will leave the agency this month.

The current deputy director of the division, Sanjay Wadhwa, will step in as acting director starting on Oct. 11, the SEC announced Wednesday.

“From recalibrating penalties and remedies to confronting emerging risks to holding issuers, insiders and gatekeepers accountable, I am incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished as a division during my tenure,” Grewal said in a statement. “I am grateful to Chair Gensler not just for the opportunity to lead the division, but also for his unwavering commitment to investor protection and support of a robust enforcement program.”

Grewal joined the agency just months after SEC Chair Gary Gensler was sworn into his position in April 2021. Cryptocurrency-related enforcement actions, which had been on the rise before Grewal and Gensler took over, were a significant part of Grewal’s tenure.

Under Grewal’s leadership, the agency issued 35 crypto enforcement actions in 2022 and a total of 40 in 2023. The division of enforcement almost doubled its crypto assets and cyber unit in May 2022, bringing the team’s total to 50.

As of Sept. 6, 2024 the agency had brought 18 crypto enforcement actions since the start of the year.

“Every day, [Grewal] has thought about how to best protect investors and help ensure market participants comply with our time-tested securities laws,” Gensler said in a statement. “He has led a division that has acted without fear or favor, following the facts and the law wherever they may lead. I greatly enjoyed working with him and wish him well.”

Wadhwa started at the SEC in 2003 as a staff attorney in the New York office’s enforcement division. He served as the senior associate director of the New York enforcement division for eight years before he became the deputy director for the entire division.

A representative from the SEC declined to comment.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
Lightspeed: All things Solana.
Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.