- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- U.S. Stocks Rally for the Second Straight Week
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
MOST SHARED
- Today's Market Action
- CNBC Video: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping American Great
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Israel Going Green
- Low Interest Rate Investing
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- Inside Wal-Mart's Acai Berry Juice Maker
- China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States
Text Size 
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said he has ordered the creation of a new office that will work full-time to return funds to investors harmed by stock fraud.
Congress authorized the SEC in 2002 to distribute fines and court-ordered restitution to victims of securities fraud and other corporate wrongdoing, but delays in distributing such funds have left many investors uncompensated, Cox testified Wednesday to a Senate appropriations subcommittee.
Cox said the SEC will move "very soon" to distribute about $3.4 billion owed to investors victimized by mutual-fund trading scandals, largely clearing up a $3.8 billion backlog in funds owed to investors under the so-called "Fair Funds" program.
Cox told lawmakers the new SEC office will ensure that investors' money is returned as quickly as possibly, and that the SEC is working with the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt so that money it collects is invested in interest-bearing accounts while awaiting distribution.
In response to questions from lawmakers, Cox said the SEC has yet to make a decision on its stance in a case pitting Enron Corp. investors against three investment banks that allegedly helped the Houston energy-trading company conceal liabilities, eventually leading to its collapse into bankruptcy in 2001. The shareholders are seeking a Supreme Court review of a lower court ruling in March that blocked their class-action lawsuit against the banks, and want the SEC to file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting their position. The SEC chief said he expects the five-member commission will consider and vote on its position in the case shortly.
Print
Email
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spoke to Columbia students, and Buffett made the students a startling offer.
- For the chief of cable company Comcast, growth has been about making deals – generally very large deals.
- Some companies may start using insurance to shift carbon risk from their balance sheets to maybe... yours?
- The president and founder of Genesis Today wants to improve America’s health, and thinks Wal-Mart can help.
- Switzerland's privacy watchdog is taking legal action to force Google to make changes to its Street View service.
- A wealthy, distracted Texas driver crashed his million-dollar Bugatti Veyron sports car into a salt marsh, say police.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes