SEC Investigations and Securities Class Actions: An Empirical Comparison

Using actions with both an SEC investigation and a class action as our baseline, we compare the targeting of SEC‐only investigations with class‐action‐only lawsuits. Looking at measures of information asymmetry, we find that investors in the market perceive greater information asymmetry following the public announcement of the underlying violation for class‐action‐only lawsuits compared with SEC‐only investigations. Turning to sanctions, we find that the incidence of top officer resignation is greater for class‐action‐only lawsuits relative to SEC‐only investigations. Our findings are consistent with the private enforcement targeting disclosure violations at least as precisely as (if not more so than) SEC enforcement.