I’ll admit I agree with this; I’ll give credit where it’s due. Not sure I buy the retroactive request though, it seems likely that they could split the baby and accept the wand-waving fix, but find prior judgments (at least those where the defendants appealed on these grounds) void. They can’t go back to the beginning of time.
I have to believe that, for at least some of these cases, there are talks between the SEC and defendants where parties are saying, that given the uncertainty let’s meet somewhere in the middle cut the fine in half and move on. Got to be some SEC staff that would rather take half a mil than roll the dice and maybe get half of nothing.