Atlanta’s SEC office gets a new leader

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has named a new regional director of its Atlanta office.

Richard Best, director of the SEC's Salt Lake City office, will replace Walter Jospin, who is stepping down at the end of this month, according to a news release. Best will lead a staff of more than 160 enforcement attorneys, accountants, compliance examiners and other specialists who take on white collar cases throughout the Atlanta region, including insider trading and financial and disclosure fraud.

The region covers Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

“Richard has made a lasting impression in the Salt Lake Regional Office,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in a written statement, “and I am confident that he will continue to protect the long-term interests of American investors through his leadership in Atlanta.”

Before he joined the SEC, Best worked for New York’s Financial Industry Regulatory Authority as a senior director and chief counsel for its Enforcement division. He also spent about 10 years as a prosecutor in the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office, where he handled organized crime prosecutions, among other cases.

In Salt Lake City, the office under his leadership filed cases against a Las Vegas prime bank investment scheme; a Utah man who solicited funds from fellow church parishioners in a bogus scheme involving “top secret” Iraqi currency and oil contracts; a $28 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 250 investors throughout the U.S.; and a Ponzi scheme that raised more than $207 million from investors worldwide, including in India and Russia.

Best, in the news release, said he looks forward to working with the Atlanta staff "to protect investors and maintain fair and orderly markets."