Head of SEC’s Atlanta office will step down

Walter Jospin, regional director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Atlanta office, will step down once his successor has been chosen.

Walter Jospin, regional director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Atlanta office, will step down once his successor has been chosen.

The regional director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Atlanta office is leaving the agency. Walter Jospin will step down once his successor is chosen, according to an SEC news release. He has held the position since February 2015.

Jospin leads a staff of about 100 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.

Under Jospin's leadership, the office has pursued civil prosecutions of an investment services subsidiary of SunTrust Banks for allegedly collecting more than $1.1 million in unnecessary fees, an Alabama attorney accused of duping pro athletes out of millions of dollars, KPMG LLP for allegedly failing to properly audit an oil-and-gas company charged with accounting fraud, an investment advisor accused of defrauding Atlanta's pension systems, and Woodstock-based Credit Nation for allegedly running a multi-state Ponzi scheme targeting elderly and naive investors.

Before he joined the SEC, Jospin was a partner at the law firm Paul Hastings LLP, where he specialized in white collar defense, mergers and acquisitions and other areas. He previously worked in the Enforcement Division of the SEC’s Atlanta office from 1980 to 1983.

“We all are grateful that Walter re-entered public service after a distinguished career in the private sector,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in the news release, “and his contributions to the Atlanta office and the commission have been exemplary.”