LeeAnn Gaunt was appointed chief of the SEC enforcement division’s municipal securities and public pensions unit. She replaces Elaine C. Greenberg, now a partner in the Washington office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Ms. Gaunt has been with the specialized enforcement unit since its inception in 2010when it was created to focus on misconduct involving municipal securities and public pension plans. The unit “is an important focus for the division,” Andrew J. Ceresney, enforcement co-director, said in a statement. He praised Ms. Gaunt’s “tremendous judgment and leadership.”
Ms. Gaunt supervised the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first pay-to-play enforcement action in September 2012 against Goldman Sachs for “in-kind” political campaign contributions to the then-state treasurer of Massachusetts.
Before joining the unit, Ms. Gaunt worked in the SEC’s Boston regional office since 2000, where she investigated investment adviser violations and insider trading, among other practices. She helped lead an accounting fraud case against General Electric for improper hedge accounting for derivative instruments, and a market timing case against Massachusetts Financial Services, according to the SEC statement.
