Stephanie Avakian is an American lawyer, regulator and white collar criminal defense specialist appointed on June 8, 2017 to co-head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Division of Enforcement, a title she shared with Steven Peikin.
In that role, she was tasked with enforcing many of 2010 Dodd-Frank provisions put in place to police markets after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.
[5] As co-chair of the division, she has cited cybercrime as one of the biggest threats to the financial markets and will have some latitude in setting enforcement and prosecution priorities for the agency.
[6] During her career at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Stephanie Avakian kept her focus on investors and threats to the market where she legislated 3000 enforcement actions and over $17 billion financial remedies.
[7] Under Avakian, trading was suspended when questions arose about integrity and adequacy of information in the marketplace by which there were six COVID-related actions were a fraud.