The SEC's Enforcement of Financial and Accounting Fraud: Key Trends and Cases

Martin Wilczynski is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura based in Washington, DC. Martin has 35 years of professional experience in accounting, internal, and forensic investigations. In addition to his nearly 20 years of consulting experience, Martin’s background includes 10 years of auditing experience at an international accounting firm and six years on the staff of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, where he served for five years within the enforcement division.
At Ankura, Martin collaborates with his team to provide a range of investigation, forensic accounting, technical advisory, and regulatory services to clients.
Prior to joining Ankura, Martin served as the leader of the forensic accounting practice at FTI Consulting. In addition, Martin was a shareholder at Ten Eyck Associates, a boutique forensic accounting and SEC enforcement consulting firm. Since leaving the SEC in 1998, Martin has focused his consulting practice on SEC enforcement proceedings, internal and forensic investigations, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and anticorruption reviews, litigation support, financial reporting, and revenue recognition issues. He has worked with outside counsel in representing boards and special committees in a number of complex, fact-finding accounting investigations involving financial restatements, whistleblower allegations, and SEC enforcement and reporting issues.
Martin frequently assists counsel in translating and communicating the results of those investigations to the SEC staff and other regulators.
Among other high-profile engagements, while at FTI, Martin served for more than seven years as co-leader of the consulting team providing investigative and litigation support to the trustee and his counsel on the landmark Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities SIPA liquidation.
While he was at the SEC, Martin was responsible for numerous financial and accounting investigations, including the critical evaluation of investigatory evidence used in making recommendations to the commission. In addition, he has expertise with respect to actions brought against accounting and auditing professionals pursuant to Rule 102(e) of the Commission’s Rules of Practice. In 1997, Martin was awarded the SEC’s Sydney C. Orbach Award in recognition of significant accounting contributions to the commission’s full disclosure program and to the protection of investors.

Lorraine Echavarria represents public companies, corporate officers, financial institutions, hedge funds and other financial market participants facing government investigations and enforcement actions. She conducts internal investigations for boards and audit committees, and provides advice and guidance to businesses on corporate governance and compliance issues.
Ms. Echavarria previously spent more than 15 years at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, where she most recently served as Associate Regional Director and head of the enforcement program for the Los Angeles Regional Office. In this role, Ms. Echavarria oversaw all the office's attorneys and accountants in the investigation and litigation of federal securities law violations in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam. She supervised a broad range of investigations involving every major subject area in the SEC's enforcement program, including financial reporting and disclosure, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, securities registration and offering fraud, insider trading, hedge fund regulation, market manipulation, investment adviser and broker-dealer regulation, and matters arising out of all of the SEC's specialized units.
Before joining the SEC in 2000, Ms. Echavarria worked for several years as an associate at two other Los Angeles-based law firms.

Jennifer Calabrese is an attorney and C.P.A. at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Rebecca Lubens manages a docket of complex regulatory and litigation matters as an Associate General Counsel at Ernst & Young. Before coming to EY, Rebecca was a Senior Counsel in the Enforcement Division at the SEC. She started her career at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where she focused on securities enforcement and white collar defense. Rebecca received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. from Harvard University.