John Dugan Named Associate District Administrator for Enforcement in the SEC's Boston District Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2006-175

Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 2006 - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the appointment of John T. Dugan as Associate District Administrator for Enforcement in the Commission's Boston District Office (BDO). In this position, Dugan will oversee the Commission's enforcement program in the New England area. Dugan succeeds David Bergers, who became the District Administrator of the BDO in April 2006.

SEC Director of Enforcement Linda Thomsen stated, "John is a lawyer with considerable talent and experience. He has also proven to be an excellent manager. I am confident that he will carry out the responsibilities of this important position with intelligence and effectiveness and I look forward to continuing to work with him."

David Bergers, District Administrator of the BDO, said, "John has been an integral part of this office's efforts to protect investors. He will provide outstanding leadership to our dedicated team of enforcement professionals."

As an attorney and manager in the BDO, Dugan has spearheaded a number of important Commission enforcement actions. In recent years, Dugan played a key role in the Commission's market timing cases against Prudential Equity Group, LLC (formerly known as Prudential Securities, Inc.) and Massachusetts Financial Services Company, in which the Commission recovered several hundred million dollars for injured investors. Dugan has also led investigations that resulted in numerous significant enforcement cases in the areas of insider trading, offering fraud and accounting fraud. In those cases, the Commission sued, among others, a broker-dealer for the actions of one of its registered representatives who participated in an investment fraud that raised over $50 million; the former general counsel of a public company for his role in an accounting fraud; the former general counsel of another public company for selling a large amount of his company's stock in advance of an announcement of bad news; and the former CEO of a public biotechnology company accused of making misleading statements about clinical trials for the company's major drug.

Dugan joined the BDO initially in 1999 as an enforcement staff attorney and subsequently served as a Branch Chief and, since July 2003, as an Assistant District Administrator in the BDO's enforcement program. Prior to joining the SEC, Dugan was an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission, where he conducted investigations and brought enforcement actions under various federal antitrust, consumer protection, and trade regulation statutes.

Dugan received his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts in 1988 and his J.D. from the George Washington University Law School in 1993.

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006/2006-175.htm