As a former Deputy Director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Enforcement, Jason Burt helps clients navigate the enforcement, examination, and compliance challenges of today’s markets. Drawing on more than 20 years at the agency in senior enforcement and examination leadership roles, he counsels and defends financial institutions, including investment advisers and broker-dealers, public companies, private funds, boards of directors, and individual executives through high-stakes government investigations, regulatory examinations, strategic crisis response, and securities litigation. Having led many of the SEC’s most significant investigations and litigations, Mr. Burt offers clients firsthand insight into how the agency identifies, investigates, and prosecutes complex securities law violations.

As Deputy Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement for the Specialized Units, Mr. Burt oversaw the agency’s Asset Management, Market Abuse, Cyber and Emerging Technologies, Complex Financial Instruments, and Public Finance Abuse Units, as well as the Office of the Whistleblower and the Cross-Border Task Force. In that capacity, he supervised many of the SEC’s most complex and highest-priority matters involving large, sophisticated financial institutions, asset managers, and public and private companies—spanning insider trading, market manipulation, financial and accounting fraud, asset management and market structure issues, complex financial products, and whistleblower and cross-border investigations. He also led these units in confronting novel issues at the forefront of the markets today, including cybersecurity, emerging technologies, and artificial intelligence.

During his tenure as a senior officer in the Enforcement Division, Mr. Burt oversaw hundreds of enforcement actions, obtained judgments and orders for more than a billion dollars in disgorgement and penalties and returned hundreds of millions of dollars to harmed investors. In doing so, he worked closely with leaders at numerous other federal, state, and foreign authorities—including the Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and state securities regulators and attorneys general—giving clients valuable insight into how the SEC coordinates with parallel enforcement and regulatory bodies.

Earlier, as Director of the SEC’s Denver Regional Office, Mr. Burt led both the Enforcement and Examination programs and managed a multidisciplinary team of more than 125 attorneys, examiners, and other professionals. He oversaw hundreds of investigations and examinations involving public company disclosures, accounting and audit failures, investment advisers, broker-dealers, private funds, and emerging technology risks, while helping to shape the agency’s national enforcement and examination priorities. 

Mr. Burt’s SEC leadership also includes service as Associate Director of Enforcement in Denver and as an Assistant Director in both the agency’s Asset Management Unit and Market Abuse Unit—the only SEC official to have held that role in both units. This distinctive vantage point gives clients a comprehensive view of the SEC’s approach to investment adviser, trading, and market integrity issues. Earlier in his tenure, he investigated and litigated complex insider trading, market structure, and market manipulation matters as an attorney in the Market Abuse Unit and advised on legal issues affecting investment advisers and broker-dealers in the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (now the Division of Examinations).