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The Securities and Exchange Commission has reassigned its top litigator to the agency’s computer management office, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly moved its leading litigator and former crypto unit boss to the agency’s IT department.
Last week, the SEC transferred its chief litigation counsel Jorge Tenreiro — who oversees the Division of Enforcement’s lawsuits and investigations — to the agency’s computer systems management office, The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 5, citing people familiar with the matter.
The SEC also reassigned a senior lawyer in the chief accountant’s office, Natasha Guinan, to an unknown role. Guinan helped write the controversial 2022 crypto accounting rule, known as Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, or SAB 121.
The rule asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets. It was revoked last month under acting chair Mark Uyeda.
The reported transfers come a day after The New York Times reported that the SEC started to scale back its 50-staff crypto enforcement unit, including one of the crypto unit’s top lawyers, who was moved from the SEC’s enforcement arm.
It’s unclear whether Tenreiro was the lawyer mentioned.
President Donald Trump promised to stop the SEC’s crypto enforcement on the campaign trail, and his Jan. 23 executive order established a crypto working group to make a legal framework for the industry.
Tenreiro joined the crypto assets and cyber unit in October 2022 as deputy chief and took over as acting chief in June after the unit’s boss, David Hirsch, departed. He was key in overseeing the SEC’s enforcement actions under former Chair Gary Gensler against firms such as Coinbase, Ripple and Tron.
Tenreiro’s name is listed among the SEC’s lawyers who sued Terraform Labs and Do Kwon in early 2023. Source: CourtListener
Tenreiro was promoted to head the SEC’s overall litigation efforts late last year, just weeks before Trump took over. The job isn’t a political appointment, such as the SEC’s chair and commissioners, and typically doesn’t see turnover amid a new administration.
His LinkedIn profile shows that he’s been with the agency since 2013, when he joined as a senior enforcement lawyer, which would have made him present during the SEC’s initial coin offering crackdown under Trump’s first administration with then-chair Jay Clayton.
Related: How the SEC’s proposed token relief might impact crypto firms
The SEC under is now looking at retroactive relief for token offerings in some cases amid a host of other ideas to ease regulatory pressure on the crypto space.
The effort is led by crypto-friendly Commissioner Hester Peirce, whom Uyeda tasked with leading a crypto task force to create a framework for the sector.
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment. Tenreiro and Guinan were contacted for comment.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
