[Photo:  Alan Sheffield  /  Flickr]

Michael Osnato Jr., Chief of the Enforcement Division’s Complex Financial Instruments Unit, will be leaving the SEC later this month. For the past 3 years, Mr. Osnato has led the specialized unit of 45 attorneys and industry experts in offices across the country that investigate potential misconduct related to complex financial products and practices involving sophisticated market participants.  Mr. Osnato has also played a leading role in SEC programs, including the Enforcement Division’s national Cooperation Committee.

Mr. Osnato joined SEC Enforcement in September 2008 and, in 2010, was promoted to assistant regional director in its NY Office.  Prior to joining the SEC, he worked at Shearman & Sterling and later at Linklaters.  He earned his BA from Williams College and his law degree from Fordham Law.

Under Mr. Osnato’s supervision, the SEC has brought enforcement actions that addressed a wide range of sophisticated misconduct:

• SEC’s first 3 sets of charges involving issuers of structured notes - a complex financial product that typically consists of a debt security with a derivative tied to the performance of other securities, commodities, currencies, or proprietary indices, against UBS AG, Merrill Lynch, and UBS Financial Services.
• SEC’s actions against a Big Three credit rating agency - Standard & Poor’s - for post-financial crisis misconduct arising from the rating of complex debt instruments.
• The SEC’s fraud charges against an HFT firm that used algorithmically-generated rapid-fire trades to manipulate the closing prices of thousands of Nasdaq-listed stocks.
• Charges against Merrill Lynch for violating the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule through usage of complex options trades that placed customer funds at risk.