A nonpartisan research firm has stepped into a crossfire between some senators and US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins over the agency’s enforcement data, with information backing up the Democratic senators. Cornerstone Research, an economic and financial consulting firm, released reports Thursday showing that SEC actions against accounting and auditing firms fell in 2025 to nine-year lows. Actions by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is overseen by the SEC, declined to a four-year low last year, the firm said.
A nonpartisan research firm has stepped into a cross-fire between some senators and US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins, over the agency’s enforcement data, with information backing up the Democratic senators.Cornerstone Research, an economic and financial consulting firm, released reports Thursday showing that SEC actions against accounting and auditing firms fell in 2025 to nine-year lows. Actions by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is overseen by the SEC, declined to a four-year low last year, the international firm said.
“Although enforcement activity often declines during administrative transitions, 2025 activity was significantly lower than in the first years of the prior two SEC chairs,” said Jean-Philippe Poissant, a report co-author and co-head of Cornerstone Research’s accounting practice.
Atkins took the helm of the SEC early last year. The SEC head during the Biden administration was Gary Gensler. During the first Trump administration, it was Jay Clayton.
The reports showed the SEC brought 68 percent fewer accounting and auditing actions than in 2024; the PCAOB finalized 27 percent fewer actions over the same period. Cornerstone noted that the declines occurred during a year marked by leadership transitions at both agencies.
In a Feb. 27 letter to Atkins, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, cited their exchange at a Feb. 12 hearing.
“I specifically asked you to confirm that ‘the SEC has brought fewer new enforcement actions than at any point in the last decade,’” Warren wrote. “In response, you stated that you were ‘not sure what data (I was) looking at because we actually haven’t released our data yet’ and that you ‘disagreed’ with the premise of my question.”
Warren and Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, cited an earlier Cornerstone report at the hearing which found that SEC enforcement actions against public companies and subsidiaries in fiscal 2025 decreased by 30 percent from the year before.
In her letter, Warren asked Atkins to release all SEC fiscal 2025 enforcement data by March 15.
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