By Chris Prentice
NEW YORK, April 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has tapped David Woodcock, a Gibson Dunn lawyer and former agency official, to be its next enforcement director after the regulator’s top cop abruptly quit last month.
Woodcock, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Dallas, Texas, will join the SEC to lead the more than 1,000-person division beginning May 4, the SEC said in a statement. He will replace Margaret Ryan, who resigned just six months into the job after clashing with the agency’s leaders over the direction of the enforcement program, Reuters previously reported.
Reuters was first to report Woodcock’s appointment.
Woodcock is a longtime securities lawyer who led the SEC’s Fort Worth, Texas, regional office from 2011 to 2015, where he helped create a task force aimed at rooting out accounting and financial reporting misconduct, the SEC said.
After leaving the SEC in his previous stint, Woodcock worked at Jones Day and ExxonMobil before joining Gibson Dunn, where he is co-chair of the firm’s securities enforcement practice group, according to his LinkedIn and law firm profiles.
“My commitment is to lead the division with the highest level of professionalism and rigor as we execute the chairman’s vision and ensure the integrity of our financial markets,” Woodcock said in a statement.
He was considered for the role last year, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins ultimately tapped Ryan, a conservative military judge with little securities law experience. Ryan wanted to be more aggressive in pursuing charges for fraud and other misconduct including in cases that touched the president’s circle, but faced resistance from Atkins and other top Republican political appointees, Reuters reported.
The enforcement division at the SEC, the top U.S. markets regulator, has been hit by staff reductions and a reorganization under President Donald Trump’s second administration. Some 18% of the SEC’s enforcement staff left in the fiscal year that ran through September, according to a recent government report.
Under Trump, the SEC has overhauled its enforcement program, dismissing numerous high-profile cases against crypto firms including Coinbase and Binance and moving away from large corporate cases with steep penalties.
“I am incredibly pleased to have David rejoin the SEC at this critical time, as we continue to focus on the types of misconduct that inflict the greatest harm to investors,” said SEC Chairman Paul Atkins in the statement.
The change in the SEC’s posture on enforcement has contributed to a drop-off in activity, with the SEC bringing more than 20% fewer actions in fiscal 2025 than in the prior year.
Woodcock, who is well known to SEC staff both in his work at the agency and in defending clients in investigations, will be able to hit the ground running, said Jessica Magee, a lawyer who worked with the incoming enforcement director at the SEC’s Fort Worth office.
“David will strike a good balance between understanding and supporting enforcement staff, and also holding them accountable to ensuring they are opening and working matters worthy of investigation,” she said. “I think he’ll be a stabilizing force.”
(Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Michelle Price, Nia Williams and David Gregorio)
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