Scott Walster is a co-founder of Peregrine Economics and a Managing Director in the firm’s Securities and Regulatory Economics practices. Scott specializes in economic analyses related to criminal and civil securities law actions and regulatory policy matters.

Prior to starting Peregrine, Scott served as an Assistant Director in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) where he was a member of the Office of Litigation Economics. At the SEC, he provided economic analysis for cases involving the violation of Federal securities laws. His work focused on the economics of spoofing and high frequency trading market manipulations; insider trading; securities lending; corporate disclosure; investment adviser “cherry picking” and churning frauds, and broker-dealer violations. He was part of a team that received the SEC’s Analytical Methods Award for a statistical analysis used to identify dozens of participants in a criminal insider trading ring.

Scott has provided expert testimony on matters involving portfolio performance, derivative trading strategies, market manipulations, and damages. Scott has advised the U.S. Department of Justice on criminal securities fraud investigations and trials; and he has advised the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Trade Commission on investigations.

In addition to assisting clients with criminal and civil securities related matters, Scott helps compliance teams at financial institutions with designing surveillance methodologies to help detect potential securities law and policy violations. Scott also helps clients understand the economic impacts of SEC and other governmental agency policy changes and provide public comments on the soundness of benefit-cost analyses and regulatory impact analyses that accompany regulatory proposals.