Wednesday, January 6, 2021 In recent years, the federal government’s financial fraud enforcement priorities have been largely consistent and robust. But in 2020, the pandemic appeared to cause government authorities to focus more resources to combat financial fraud as it related to COVID-19. In 2021, we may see an uptick in enforcement actions because of new priorities set by a Biden administration and because of fraudulent activities associated with the pandemic. As discussed below, there are multiple areas of financial fraud enforcement to watch. Insider Trading Over the last decade, insider trading has been a key enforcement priority for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and will likely continue to be one for quite some time. While the DOJ and SEC have been leading the charge in this enforcement area, with the advent of authorities granted under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has also become a significant player in the government’s pursuit of insider trading enforcement. DOJ prosecutors — particularly those from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern District of New York (SDNY) — and SEC/CFTC enforcement attorneys have brought several headline-grabbing cases in this area, and given some of the trading activity witnessed during COVID-19, including those by some members of Congress immediately before the pandemic took hold back in February 2020, we could see an uptick in the number of charged cases in the coming year. To this end, in March 2020, the SEC’s former co-directors of enforcement made clear in a rare public statement that the SEC is watching for potential insider trading during this time of national crisis.