SEC Lawsuits in Federal Court by Year: Fiscal 2026 Runs Near Early-1990s Levels
Original analysis of 64,817 records from the Federal Judicial Center, FY1991–FY2026 (FY2026: Oct. 2025–June 2026). Published October 19, 2026.
We counted every new civil case in U.S. district courts that names the Securities and Exchange Commission as plaintiff in the securities category, by federal fiscal year, from FY1991 through June 2026.
What the court records show about SEC lawsuits
The SEC filed 81 new lawsuits in U.S. district courts in the first nine months of fiscal 2026 (October 2025 through June 2026), 25.7% fewer than in the same months of fiscal 2025. Among the 36 October-to-June periods since FY1991, only FY1991 (71) and FY2024 (75) were lower, so through June fiscal 2026 is not yet the lowest since the early 1990s. The full-year total depends on July to September, the months in which SEC filings have often peaked.
- 81New SEC court suits, Oct. 2025–June 2026
- −26%Change vs. Oct.–June of FY2025
- 161New SEC court suits in full FY2025
Third-lowest nine months since FY1991
The 81 suits filed from October 2025 to June 2026 rank third-lowest of 36 October-to-June periods since FY1991. Only FY1991 (71) and FY2024 (75) had fewer.
Below the recent average
From FY2016 to FY2025 the SEC filed an average of 127 new suits in October through June. Fiscal 2026 is 36.1% below that average and 42.6% below the same months of FY2023 (141).
FY2025 ended at 161
The SEC filed 161 new federal court suits in FY2025, after 163 in FY2024 and 235 in FY2023. The lowest full year in the series was FY2014 with 151; the highest was FY2009 with 297.
A full-year low is possible, not certain
If the rest of the year followed the FY2016–FY2025 pattern, fiscal 2026 would end near 133 suits; with the FY2025 pattern, near 120. Both would be below every full fiscal year since FY1991, but neither is a count.
Manhattan leads
The Southern District of New York received 401 of the 2,087 new SEC suits filed from FY2016 to FY2025 (19.2%), more than any other federal district.
How Many Lawsuits Did the SEC File in Federal Court in Fiscal 2026
From October 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, the SEC filed 81 new civil lawsuits in U.S. district courts, according to the Federal Judicial Center's case data.
That is 25.7% fewer than the 109 suits filed in the same nine months of FY2025 and the third-lowest October-to-June total since FY1991.
Because the court data end on June 30, 2026, we compare fiscal years over the same nine months, October through June. On that basis fiscal 2026 ranks third-lowest of 36 periods. The two lower ones are FY1991, the first year of the series, with 71 suits, and FY2024 with 75.
FY2024 shows why nine months are not a full year: after a low October-to-June count, the SEC filed most of that year's 163 suits from July to September. Over FY2016 to FY2025, October through June accounted for 60.7% of each year's new suits on average; in FY2025 it was 67.7%, with 52 suits in the last three months.
The first weeks of fiscal 2026 fell into a lapse in federal appropriations. According to a Squire Patton Boggs client note quoting the SEC website, effective October 1, 2025 the agency would have "a very limited number of staff members available" and staff to "respond to emergency situations".
New SEC lawsuits filed October through June, fewest first
| Rank | FY | Oct.–June |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1991 | 71 |
| 2 | 2024 | 75 |
| 3 | 2026 | 81 |
| 4 | 1992 | 93 |
| 5 | 1995 | 103 |
| 6 | 2014 | 105 |
| 7 | 1993 | 107 |
| 8 | 1996 | 109 |
| 9 | 2025 | 109 |
| 10 | 1994 | 111 |
All fiscal years since 1991
| Rank | FY | Oct.–June |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | 2015 | 114 |
| 12 | 1997 | 117 |
| 13 | 1998 | 122 |
| 14 | 1999 | 123 |
| 15 | 2017 | 127 |
| 16 | 2019 | 127 |
| 17 | 2020 | 127 |
| 18 | 2022 | 131 |
| 19 | 2013 | 134 |
| 20 | 2023 | 141 |
| 21 | 2016 | 142 |
| 22 | 2021 | 143 |
| 23 | 2018 | 145 |
| 24 | 2001 | 148 |
| 25 | 2006 | 148 |
| 26 | 2000 | 152 |
| 27 | 2007 | 156 |
| 28 | 2004 | 168 |
| 29 | 2003 | 176 |
| 30 | 2010 | 180 |
| 31 | 2008 | 183 |
| 32 | 2012 | 185 |
| 33 | 2002 | 193 |
| 34 | 2005 | 197 |
| 35 | 2009 | 204 |
| 36 | 2011 | 207 |
Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30; fiscal 2026 began October 1, 2025. All rows compare October through June only.
SEC Lawsuits in Federal Court by Year Since 1991
The SEC filed between 151 and 297 new federal court suits a year from FY1991 to FY2025, with the highest count in FY2009 and the lowest in FY2014.
FY2025 ended with 161 new SEC suits, about the level of the early 1990s (157 in FY1991) and 31.5% below FY2023.
The series counts each new SEC lawsuit once, by the date it was filed. FY2024 (163) and FY2025 (161) were the lowest pair of years since FY2014 and FY2015.
A court count is narrower than the SEC's own annual statistics. For fiscal 2025 the agency reported that it "filed 456 enforcement actions, including 303 standalone actions". That total also includes administrative proceedings, which are not filed in court, so the two figures measure different things.
New SEC lawsuits in U.S. district courts by fiscal year
| FY | Months | SEC suits | Oct.–June |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 9 | 81 | 81 |
| 2025 | 12 | 161 | 109 |
| 2024 | 12 | 163 | 75 |
| 2023 | 12 | 235 | 141 |
| 2022 | 12 | 232 | 131 |
| 2021 | 12 | 238 | 143 |
| 2020 | 12 | 214 | 127 |
| 2019 | 12 | 211 | 127 |
| 2018 | 12 | 250 | 145 |
| 2017 | 12 | 190 | 127 |
| 2016 | 12 | 193 | 142 |
| 2015 | 12 | 169 | 114 |
All fiscal years since 1991
| FY | Months | SEC suits | Oct.–June |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 12 | 151 | 105 |
| 2013 | 12 | 214 | 134 |
| 2012 | 12 | 267 | 185 |
| 2011 | 12 | 252 | 207 |
| 2010 | 12 | 230 | 180 |
| 2009 | 12 | 297 | 204 |
| 2008 | 12 | 274 | 183 |
| 2007 | 12 | 249 | 156 |
| 2006 | 12 | 200 | 148 |
| 2005 | 12 | 259 | 197 |
| 2004 | 12 | 247 | 168 |
| 2003 | 12 | 255 | 176 |
| 2002 | 12 | 263 | 193 |
| 2001 | 12 | 209 | 148 |
| 2000 | 12 | 239 | 152 |
| 1999 | 12 | 204 | 123 |
| 1998 | 12 | 207 | 122 |
| 1997 | 12 | 190 | 117 |
| 1996 | 12 | 186 | 109 |
| 1995 | 12 | 176 | 103 |
| 1994 | 12 | 191 | 111 |
| 1993 | 12 | 170 | 107 |
| 1992 | 12 | 152 | 93 |
| 1991 | 12 | 157 | 71 |
FY2026 covers October 2025 through June 2026 only (nine months) and is not comparable with the full years.
Which Federal Courts Get the Most SEC Lawsuits
Over the ten full fiscal years FY2016 to FY2025, the SEC filed 2,087 new suits in 77 federal judicial districts.
The Southern District of New York led with 401 suits (19.2%), followed by the Central District of California and the Southern District of Florida.
The ranking counts where the SEC filed, not where defendants live or where the conduct took place. Districts that include major financial centers lead the list. Counts are not adjusted for the number of companies, investment advisers or broker-dealers in a district.
New SEC lawsuits by federal district, FY2016–FY2025
- New York Southern40119.21% of SEC suits
- California Central1989.49% of SEC suits
- Florida Southern1758.39% of SEC suits
- New York Eastern1075.13% of SEC suits
- New Jersey1044.98% of SEC suits
- Massachusetts964.60% of SEC suits
- California Northern793.79% of SEC suits
- Illinois Northern763.64% of SEC suits
- Texas Northern663.16% of SEC suits
- Georgia Northern572.73% of SEC suits
- California Southern522.49% of SEC suits
- Nevada401.92% of SEC suits
All districts
- Florida Middle391.87% of SEC suits
- Connecticut361.72% of SEC suits
- Pennsylvania Eastern341.63% of SEC suits
- Colorado341.63% of SEC suits
- District of Columbia341.63% of SEC suits
- Texas Southern291.39% of SEC suits
- Utah291.39% of SEC suits
- Texas Western251.20% of SEC suits
- Washington Western211.01% of SEC suits
- Maryland200.96% of SEC suits
- North Carolina Western200.96% of SEC suits
- Texas Eastern190.91% of SEC suits
- Minnesota180.86% of SEC suits
- Arizona180.86% of SEC suits
- Michigan Eastern160.77% of SEC suits
- California Eastern160.77% of SEC suits
- Virginia Eastern150.72% of SEC suits
- Ohio Northern120.57% of SEC suits
- Pennsylvania Western110.53% of SEC suits
- New York Western100.48% of SEC suits
- Indiana Southern90.43% of SEC suits
- Wisconsin Eastern90.43% of SEC suits
- Ohio Southern80.38% of SEC suits
- Tennessee Middle80.38% of SEC suits
- North Carolina Eastern70.34% of SEC suits
- Louisiana Western70.34% of SEC suits
- Missouri Western70.34% of SEC suits
- Pennsylvania Middle60.29% of SEC suits
- North Carolina Middle60.29% of SEC suits
- South Carolina60.29% of SEC suits
- Florida Northern60.29% of SEC suits
- New York Northern50.24% of SEC suits
- Mississippi Southern50.24% of SEC suits
- Georgia Middle50.24% of SEC suits
- Indiana Northern50.24% of SEC suits
- Idaho50.24% of SEC suits
- Maine40.19% of SEC suits
- Puerto Rico40.19% of SEC suits
- Delaware40.19% of SEC suits
- Alabama Southern40.19% of SEC suits
- Georgia Southern40.19% of SEC suits
- Wisconsin Western40.19% of SEC suits
- Nebraska40.19% of SEC suits
- Oregon40.19% of SEC suits
- Wyoming40.19% of SEC suits
- New Hampshire30.14% of SEC suits
- Rhode Island30.14% of SEC suits
- Alabama Northern30.14% of SEC suits
- Kentucky Eastern30.14% of SEC suits
- Tennessee Western30.14% of SEC suits
- Hawaii30.14% of SEC suits
- New Mexico30.14% of SEC suits
- Oklahoma Western30.14% of SEC suits
- West Virginia Northern20.10% of SEC suits
- Louisiana Eastern20.10% of SEC suits
- Louisiana Middle20.10% of SEC suits
- Tennessee Eastern20.10% of SEC suits
- Virginia Western10.05% of SEC suits
- West Virginia Southern10.05% of SEC suits
- Kentucky Western10.05% of SEC suits
- Michigan Western10.05% of SEC suits
- Iowa Northern10.05% of SEC suits
- Iowa Southern10.05% of SEC suits
- South Dakota10.05% of SEC suits
- Kansas10.05% of SEC suits
District names as used by the Federal Judicial Center, for example "New York Southern" for the Southern District of New York.
Download the Data and Cite This Study
Every table as a CSV file and in one Excel workbook, a short PDF summary and every chart as an image, free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0).
- SEC lawsuits by federal judicial district, FY2016-FY2025New SEC-named securities cases filed in each federal judicial district over the ten full fiscal years FY2016 to FY2025. · 77 rows · CSV, 2 KB
- SEC lawsuits filed in federal district court by fiscal yearNew SEC-named securities cases (FJC securities nature of suit, original proceedings, one per docket) per federal fiscal year, FY1991 to the first nine months of FY2026, with all U.S.-plaintiff suits in the category for comparison. · 36 rows · CSV, 1 KB
- SEC lawsuits filed October through June, ranked from fewestNew SEC-named securities cases filed in the first nine months (October to June) of each fiscal year since FY1991, ranked from fewest to most. · 36 rows · CSV, 1 KB
- All tables in one Excel workbookOne sheet per table plus an About sheet with sources, method and citation · Excel (.xlsx), 15 KB
- Summary to print or forward (3 pages)Short answer, key figures, main chart, findings, method and citation · PDF, 189 KB
Charts for your story
New SEC lawsuits filed October through June, fewest first
Embed this chart
New SEC lawsuits in U.S. district courts by fiscal year
Embed this chart
New SEC lawsuits by federal district, FY2016–FY2025
Embed this chart
How to cite
Goldberg, L. (2026). SEC Lawsuits in U.S. District Courts — New Cases by Fiscal Year and District (FY1991–June 2026) [Data set]. Settlement Insight. https://settlementinsight.com/research/sec-federal-court-lawsuits-by-year
BibTeX
@dataset{goldberg_2026_sec_federal_court_lawsuits_by_year,
author = {Goldberg, Leonard},
title = {SEC Lawsuits in U.S. District Courts --- New Cases by Fiscal Year and District (FY1991--June 2026)},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Settlement Insight},
url = {https://settlementinsight.com/research/sec-federal-court-lawsuits-by-year}
}How We Measured
Checked against published figures
- Securities, commodities and exchanges civil cases commenced in FY2025 with the United States as plaintiff: published 186, our count 185 (0.54% apart).Table C-2. U.S. District Courts - Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit (12 months ending Sept. 30, 2025)
- All securities, commodities and exchanges civil cases commenced in FY2025: published 938, our count 940 (0.21% apart).Table C-2. U.S. District Courts - Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit (12 months ending Sept. 30, 2025)
Full method and limits of the data
A case counts as an SEC lawsuit when the plaintiff recorded in the IDB is the Securities and Exchange Commission. The IDB stores shortened plaintiff names of at most 30 characters, so we matched the many spellings and truncations. After removing punctuation, "et al." and a leading "The", "United States", "United States of America", "USA" or "U.S.", a name counts if it begins with SEC, S.E.C., USSEC, Securities, Security or a common misspelling of Securities ("Securites", "Securties") and is followed by nothing, by "and" alone, by "Comm"/"Commission" or by any word starting with "Ex" (Exchange, Exch) or the letter E, as in "Securities and Exchange Commis", "Securities & Exchange Commissi", "United States Securities and E", "U.S. - SEC" and "S.E.C.". Truncations that cut the name to "Securities" or "Securities and" are counted; so is one record whose name was cut at the front to "And Exchange Commission" (filed August 29, 2024, with the United States as plaintiff), which is why fiscal 2024 has 163 suits. Names with any company or other-agency word after the first word (Investor, Protection, Bank, Corp, Inc, LLC, Fund, Trust, Capital, Group and similar), such as the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, are excluded, as are garbled spellings that do not begin as listed ("Secutities Exchange", "Seucurities and Exchange", "United Exchange Securities"). SEC-named cases are counted whatever jurisdiction code the court entered, because some SEC suits are coded as federal question cases rather than U.S. plaintiff cases.
A new lawsuit is a record with origin code 1 (original proceeding), counted once per district, office and docket number among SEC-named origin-1 records; 18 repeat records of the same case, which appear in two annual data files with the same filing date, were dropped. Same-day suits with different docket numbers are separate cases. Reopened, remanded and transferred cases are not counted as new suits. Each case is assigned to the federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30) of its filing date field. Because fiscal 2026 is incomplete, years are also compared over October through June; the 36 October-to-June periods are FY1991 through FY2026, and the lowest and highest full years are taken from FY1991 through FY2025 only. In total we count 7,576 new SEC lawsuits from FY1991 through June 2026.
To check the data against the courts' published statistics, we counted all securities cases commenced in FY2025 with the United States as plaintiff, including every origin code as the courts do. We get 185; Table C-2 of the Administrative Office reports 186, a difference of 0.5%. For all securities, commodities and exchanges cases we count 940 against 938 in Table C-2.
What this data cannot tell you
- The count covers only lawsuits the SEC filed in federal district court under nature of suit 850. It does not include administrative proceedings, settled orders the SEC issues itself, or appeals, so it is smaller than the number of enforcement actions the SEC reports. A few SEC court filings coded under other nature-of-suit categories, and cases where the plaintiff name was left blank, are not counted.
- Courts can add or correct case records after the fact, and the most recent months are the most likely to change. The fiscal 2026 figure is preliminary, and the October-to-June comparison is not a forecast of the full year; the projections in this study assume a seasonal pattern that has varied from year to year.
- Names are matched as the courts recorded them. A misspelled or heavily abbreviated SEC name may be missed, and a case where the SEC is not the first-listed plaintiff is not counted. The court data do not show the type of violation, the defendants' industry or the outcome of a case.
- Up to 1992 the IDB was organized by statistical years running July to June. We assign years by filing date, but the earliest years of the series rest on older reporting files and may be less complete than recent years.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many lawsuits did the SEC file in fiscal 2026?
From October 2025 through June 2026, the first nine months of fiscal 2026, the SEC filed 81 new lawsuits in U.S. district courts, according to Federal Judicial Center data. Court data for July to September 2026 were not yet available.
Are SEC enforcement lawsuits at their lowest level since the 1990s?
Through June, not quite. The 81 suits filed from October 2025 to June 2026 are the third-lowest October-to-June total since FY1991; FY1991 (71) and FY2024 (75) were lower.
How many lawsuits did the SEC file in federal court in 2025?
In fiscal 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025) the SEC filed 161 new lawsuits in U.S. district courts, down from 235 in FY2023. The SEC's own count of 456 enforcement actions is larger because it also includes administrative proceedings.
Has SEC enforcement declined?
Measured by new federal court lawsuits, yes: October-to-June filings in fiscal 2026 were 25.7% below the same months of FY2025 and 36.1% below the FY2016–FY2025 average. The court data do not show why.
Where does the SEC file most of its lawsuits?
The Southern District of New York received 401 of the 2,087 new SEC suits filed from FY2016 to FY2025 (19.2%), more than any other district.
What year did the SEC file the most lawsuits?
Since FY1991 the highest count was FY2009, with 297 new SEC suits in federal district court. The lowest full year was FY2014 with 151.
Sources
- Integrated Database (IDB): civil cases — Federal Judicial Center
- Table C-2. U.S. District Courts – Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit, 12 months ending September 30, 2025 — Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
- SEC Announces Enforcement Results for Fiscal Year 2025 — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Shutdown — Squire Patton Boggs
Independent analysis. Settlement Insight is not a law firm and not affiliated with any agency named here. Analysis by Leonard Goldberg, Editor. How we work: methodology, our data.
More Research and Data
Other studies from our database of public legal records — each with free CSV downloads.
Related research
Latest studies
- Federal OSHA Inspections, FY2026Federal OSHA opened at least 21,506 inspections in FY2026 (partial count)
- Benefit card complaints by companyComerica drew 30.4% of CFPB benefit card complaints, July 2014–2025
- Truck and delivery crash lawsuitsFedEx companies: named first in 276 federal crash suits, FY2016–FY2025, most of any group tracked
- Civil Forfeiture Default Judgments41.2% of U.S. forfeiture and penalty suits closed FY2021–FY2025 ended in default