On May 18, 2026, the SEC adopted a final rule eliminating its longstanding requirement that parties settling SEC enforcement actions agree not to publicly deny the Commission’s allegations, otherwise known as the “no-deny” portion of its longstanding “no-admit, no-deny” settlement policy. The SEC’s rescission of Rule 202.5(e) of its rules of informal procedure (a.k.a. the “no-deny” rule) removes a common settlement friction point and may expand the range of resolutions available to the SEC and settling parties.

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Tags: financial regulatory and compliance, GT Insight, SEC
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Photo of Miriam (Mimi) G. Bahcall Miriam (Mimi) G. Bahcall

Miriam G. Bahcall focuses her practice on a variety of financial services industry litigation and regulatory matters, as well as general commercial litigation. She has represented underwriters, broker-dealers, insurance companies, directors and officers in class action and derivative litigation. In addition, Mimi has…

Miriam G. Bahcall focuses her practice on a variety of financial services industry litigation and regulatory matters, as well as general commercial litigation. She has represented underwriters, broker-dealers, insurance companies, directors and officers in class action and derivative litigation. In addition, Mimi has represented broker-dealers, investment banks, investment management firms, and public issuers and their management and employees in investigations and disciplinary proceedings initiated by the SEC, FINRA, CBOE and state regulators. She has also conducted internal investigations of publicly traded domestic and foreign companies whose operations are in the United States and China. Additionally, Mimi has represented brokerage firms and their management in various customer-initiated cases, and injunction and arbitration proceedings.

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Photo of Tracy S. Combs Tracy S. Combs

Tracy serves as Co-Managing Shareholder of the Salt Lake City office. A former Regional Director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, she represents corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in a wide range of federal and state government investigations, litigation, and regulatory inquiries…

Tracy serves as Co-Managing Shareholder of the Salt Lake City office. A former Regional Director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, she represents corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in a wide range of federal and state government investigations, litigation, and regulatory inquiries nationwide, including those involving the SEC, the Department of Justice, and state Attorneys General. She also counsels clients in complex business disputes, tort litigation, and cybersecurity matters. As Utah Business Journal’s Legal Elite edition stated in 2025, Tracy can “navigate a wide range of legal situations and…easily handle a crisis for any client.”

Tracy joined GT after an eight-year tenure at the SEC, where she served in a variety of roles in San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Most recently, Tracy served as Director of the SEC’s Salt Lake Regional Office, where she oversaw some of its most high-profile cases. As a former SEC trial and investigative attorney in San Francisco, Tracy brought several groundbreaking enforcement actions, including the SEC’s first public company cybersecurity disclosure case and its first “shadow” insider trading case. Tracy served for three years in the Division of Enforcement’s former Cyber Unit, where she co-led its Cybersecurity & Regulated Entities group. In 2021 to 2022, Tracy served as counsel to the Director of Enforcement, advising on priority matters and coordinating with the SEC’s criminal and civil law enforcement partners nationwide.

Prior to her government service, Tracy was a litigator at a large law firm in Philadelphia and New York, with a focus on high-stakes white collar criminal matters, securities class actions, and complex commercial disputes, and clerked for the Honorable Luis Felipe Restrepo in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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Photo of Richard M. Cutshall Richard M. Cutshall

Richard M. Cutshall is Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial, Regulatory and Compliance Practice, Co-Chair of the firm’s Private Funds Group, and Co-Chair of the firm’s Investment Management Group. Rich has experience representing clients in a variety of investment management, general securities, and corporate

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Richard M. Cutshall is Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial, Regulatory and Compliance Practice, Co-Chair of the firm’s Private Funds Group, and Co-Chair of the firm’s Investment Management Group. Rich has experience representing clients in a variety of investment management, general securities, and corporate matters, including the representation of mutual funds, ETFs, and other funds registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940; fund and ETF independent directors; unregistered investment funds; federally registered, state registered, and federally and state exempt investment advisers; broker-dealers; and an array of public and private companies.

Rich represents investment adviser clients at all stages of their life cycle, from concept and formation through registration, daily operation through wind-down and exiting the business, including representing investment adviser clients on both the buy-side and sell-side in M&A transactions. He also represents clients in all aspects of investment company practice, including organizing and forming new funds and ETFs, registering mutual funds and ETFs with the SEC, and the acquisition and merger of public funds.

In the course of representing investment advisers and public and private funds, Rich advises Greenberg Traurig’s clients on all aspects of securities regulatory compliance, particularly including new and existing SEC rules; SEC examination, regulatory, and investigative initiatives and sweeps; the SEC’s proposal, adoption, and implementation of new regulations, such as the recently rewritten investment adviser marketing rule; and finding compliance solutions related to the regulatory scheme applicable to investment advisers and investment funds, including implementing both novel and long-standing SEC regulatory guidance and interpretations. He also advises clients on the day-to-day aspects of corporate governance, board and adviser fiduciary responsibility, and SEC compliance, as well as assisting clients in all aspects of SEC and other regulatory examinations.

Rich has given presentations on and assists a variety of investment management clients with their compliance with anti-money laundering laws, and has performed annual independent third party audits of several clients’ anti-money laundering policies, programs and controls.

Rich also has experience representing clients in many industries in the sale or acquisition of businesses, formation of corporate entities, sophisticated contract negotiations, and in obtaining, renewing and renegotiating the terms of financing business operations. He routinely works with clients’ chief executive officers, chief financial officers, directors, and in-house general and assistant general counsels, including occasionally working from clients’ corporate headquarters upon request. Rich works with corporate and finance clients of all sizes, from startup family-run businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors to Fortune 500 clients. He also has experience representing clients across many industries, including health care, data management, retail product display and advertising design and manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, and real estate management and brokerage industries.

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Photo of Barbara A. Jones Barbara A. Jones

Barbara A. Jones is Co-Managing Shareholder of the firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the firm’s Global Corporate practice. Barbara serves as Chair of the firm’s interdisciplinary Blockchain & Digital Assets practice. Barbara maintains a diverse corporate and securities law practice

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Barbara A. Jones is Co-Managing Shareholder of the firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the firm’s Global Corporate practice. Barbara serves as Chair of the firm’s interdisciplinary Blockchain & Digital Assets practice. Barbara maintains a diverse corporate and securities law practice across industry groups, emphasizing complex international and domestic transactions, including private and public financings, dual listings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic collaborations and joint ventures, and licensing transactions. She serves as a trusted advisor to public and private company boards of directors on governance matters and complex regulatory reporting and compliance issues. Barbara’s clients include financial institutions, private equity and venture capital groups, and public and private companies in emerging technology, life sciences and biotechnology, defense and security, blockchain and digital assets, telecommunications, information technology, energy (traditional and renewable), mining, media, entertainment and sports. Barbara also represents Olympic and professional athletes and sports-related organizations.

Barbara practiced U.S. law in London from 1990 through 1997 with Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP, and headed the international capital markets practice of Kirkland & Ellis LLP from 1999 to 2003 before relocating to Boston. From 1997 to 1999, she served as Vice-President, Assistant General Counsel and Regional Counsel for capital markets with J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd. in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since returning to the U.S., she has continued to actively represent public and private companies, private equity groups and investment banks in the European, Scandinavian, African and greater Asian markets, including China.

Barbara is a past chair of the ABA’s Subcommittee on International Securities Matters. She is a frequent speaker at conferences relating to cross-border securities matters, strategic alternatives, and digital asset structures. She serves on the Government of Bermuda’s Global FinTech Advisory Board.

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Photo of Marc M. Rossell Marc M. Rossell

Marc M. Rossell, co-chair of the firm’s Latin America Practice, focuses his practice on capital markets transactions, including both equity and debt securities offerings and structured financings. Marc has been involved in many of the largest securities offerings out of Latin America, including…

Marc M. Rossell, co-chair of the firm’s Latin America Practice, focuses his practice on capital markets transactions, including both equity and debt securities offerings and structured financings. Marc has been involved in many of the largest securities offerings out of Latin America, including landmark privatization offerings by the Argentine government’s national oil company and telephone companies, the privatization of the Peruvian telephone company, as well as many high-yield debt offerings and equity offerings of companies in Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru and other countries. During the 1980s, he spent a considerable amount of time as bank advisory committee counsel, focusing on the restructuring of the external debt of many countries in Latin America. He also represents creditors and debtors in liability management transactions and has considerable experience with the issuance of project bonds to finance construction projects, many of which have won awards from industry publications.

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Photo of Brittany Norfleet Royce Brittany Norfleet Royce

Brittany Royce is an experienced litigator who focuses her practice on representing employers in a wide range of workforce-related matters. Brittany’s practice covers a cross-section of labor and employment litigation and white collar defense and investigations. She regularly advises and defends health care…

Brittany Royce is an experienced litigator who focuses her practice on representing employers in a wide range of workforce-related matters. Brittany’s practice covers a cross-section of labor and employment litigation and white collar defense and investigations. She regularly advises and defends health care companies and financial institutions in a wide variety of disputes before government agencies and in state and federal courts nationwide.

Brittany also has deep experience representing individual defendants in high-profile matters, including a former banker involved in the “Tuna Bonds Scandal” and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and money laundering, a parent charged in the “Varsity Blues” college admissions federal prosecution, and a global asset manager in an SEC enforcement action related to hedge fund underperformance during the COVID-19 market downturn.

Read more about Brittany Norfleet RoyceBrittany's Linkedin Profile
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Photo of William Mack William Mack

William B. Mack is a co-chair of the Financial Regulatory and Compliance Practice. He is experienced in advising companies on regulatory and compliance matters relating to the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, the Exchange Act, Anti-Money Laundering laws and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

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William B. Mack is a co-chair of the Financial Regulatory and Compliance Practice. He is experienced in advising companies on regulatory and compliance matters relating to the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, the Exchange Act, Anti-Money Laundering laws and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules.

William’s practice involves all aspects of broker-dealer regulation, including Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) membership, supervision, employment, research, soft dollar arrangements, chaperoning of foreign broker-dealers, social media, use of foreign finders, anti-money laundering rules, alternative trading systems (ATS), exchanges, and market making issues. He also provides regulatory guidance to investment banking clients in connection with securities offerings and related trading issues.

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Photo of Steven M. Malina Steven M. Malina

Steven M. Malina, a former Senior Attorney in the SEC’s enforcement branch, focuses his practice on a variety of litigation and regulatory matters with representations of financial services industry clients, hedge fund matters, and securities and general commercial litigation. He represents officers, directors,

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Steven M. Malina, a former Senior Attorney in the SEC’s enforcement branch, focuses his practice on a variety of litigation and regulatory matters with representations of financial services industry clients, hedge fund matters, and securities and general commercial litigation. He represents officers, directors, broker-dealers, investment advisors, commercial banks, investment banks, investment management firms, and public issuers in investigations and disciplinary proceedings initiated by the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, FDIC, NYSE, CBOE, CME, and state regulators. In addition, Steve represents clients in related investor class-action, derivative, and other litigation and arbitration. He has also conducted internal investigations on behalf of publicly traded companies and represented committees and executive officers in internal investigations. Steve has represented brokerage firms and their management in customer-initiated cases, and injunction and arbitration proceedings.

Prior to entering private practice, Steve served as First Vice President and Deputy Regional Counsel for a large financial corporation and was a Senior Attorney in the Branch of Enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read more about Steven M. MalinaSteven's Linkedin Profile
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Photo of Daniel J. Wadley Daniel J. Wadley

Daniel Wadley is an experienced trial attorney with over 20 years of litigation experience, including an 11-year tenure at the SEC. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation; securities litigation; SEC regulatory compliance, investigations, and enforcement actions; auditor liability; financial services regulation and

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Daniel Wadley is an experienced trial attorney with over 20 years of litigation experience, including an 11-year tenure at the SEC. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation; securities litigation; SEC regulatory compliance, investigations, and enforcement actions; auditor liability; financial services regulation and compliance; white collar defense; and corporate internal investigations.

Daniel possesses deep institutional knowledge of SEC policies, practices and procedures. Prior to joining GT, Daniel served as the Director of the SEC’s Salt Lake Regional Office where he oversaw and managed all of the office’s investigations, its federal court litigation, and its administrative proceedings. He was a member of the SEC’s FCPA unit and oversaw multiple investigations into FCPA violations. Before taking on the role of Regional Director, Daniel was trial counsel in the Division of Enforcement and also senior counsel to the Directors of Enforcement in Washington, D.C. In his trial counsel role, Daniel represented the SEC in securities enforcement matters filed throughout the United States in both federal district courts and in SEC administrative actions. As senior counsel to the Directors of Enforcement, Daniel helped shape and oversee Agency enforcement priorities and policy, reviewing all recommended actions and settlements pending before the Commission.

Daniel has led litigation teams in federal and state court actions throughout the country. His experience ranges from complex commercial litigation disputes to highly technical SEC regulatory compliance. He has represented the largest accounting firms in the world, as well as individuals, banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, real estate developers, and public and private companies both large and small. He has unique experience in matters involving regulatory filings; digital currencies; financial statement and accounting fraud; corporate mismanagement and internal controls violations; internal investigations; Foreign Corrupt Practice Act violations; insider trading; Ponzi scheme and offering frauds; and broker-dealer and Investment Adviser fraud.

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