George Canellos, co-chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division, said investigators are turning their focus to enforcing new regulations from the 2010 Dodd Frank Act.

“You'll see a lot of our cases geared toward showing that when new regulations are written that people must comply with them,” said Canellos, who was speaking today on a panel at a Practising Law Institute event in New York. Enforcers play a “critically important” role in shaping new rules, he said.

Canellos, who highlighted new regulations aimed to bring transparency to the derivatives market, said investigators are pursuing issues such as the role of fiduciaries who are responsible for setting up internal safeguards against fraud and improper risk taking. The shift in focus comes as the agency wraps up cases linked to the credit market turmoil of 2008, he said.