[ by Melanie Gretchen ] The SEC today appointed a new Regional Director of the Los Angeles Regional Office. Michele Wein Layne, who will begin immediately, will oversee the examination and enforcement programs that operate out of the Los Angeles office.  Her unit has a staff of more than 120, which primarily covers the SEC’s examination and enforcement efforts in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and Guam. Ms. Layne joined the SEC 17 years ago as a staff attorney in the Enforcement Division, most recently serving as an Associate Regional Director for Enforcement in the L.A. office. Cases in which she played a leadership role include the enforcement action against Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo – the largest SEC penalty ever paid by a public company’s senior executive and the CSK Auto matter which marked the SEC’s first-ever Sarbanes-Oxley Act "clawback" case against an individual who was required to return bonuses and stock profits while not personally charged for the company’s misconduct. "Michele has devoted her professional life to the high calling of protecting the nation’s investors and its financial markets.  The leadership, judgment, and deep substantive knowledge she exercised while supervising some of the SEC’s most challenging enforcement actions makes her the perfect choice to lead the Los Angeles Regional Office into the future. I am delighted she has accepted this position." -- Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. Ms. Layne received her law degree from the University of Southern California.  She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Los Angeles.  Before joining the SEC in 1995, she focused on complex business litigation in private practice for 11 years at the law firms of Dewey & LeBoeuf and Buchalter Nemer. [SEC PR 12-140, 7/19/12]