Law360, New York ( December 15, 2015, 11:41 AM EST) -- Broker-dealers have been and remain a critical focus of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement program.[1] Over the last five years, the number of commission enforcement actions against broker-dealers has more than doubled, and in 2014 (the most recent year for which such statistics are available), broker-dealers were the single largest category of SEC enforcement actions. In the first 11 months of 2015, the SEC brought enforcement actions against broker-dealers in approximately two dozen distinct areas, with sanctions ranging from less than $100,000 to nearly $180 million. In its 2015 financial report, the SEC repeated its view that one of the two principal purposes of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 is to ensure that "people who sell and trade securities — brokers, dealers and exchanges — must treat investors fairly and honestly, putting investors' interests first."[2]...