Burned by the Madoff and Stanford Financial scandals, all signs point to the Securities and Exchange Commission taking a greater interest in investigating and prosecuting financial matters that until now barely made a blip on the SEC's radar. Get ready for increased scrutiny of credit default swaps and hedge funds, says Dallas criminal defense attorney and former SEC prosecutor John Teakell. "Clearly, the SEC has been stung by the criticism that it was asleep at the wheel while all of this was going on," Teakell says. "And now you're bound to see a slew of new investigations as it tries to demonstrate to Congress and the White House that it can do its job. That means that people setting up and running hedge funds and marketing these derivatives had better be very, very careful." As Bloomberg reports, new SEC investigations have surged 32 percent since the end of January after Chairman Mary Schapiro took the agency’s helm, and the agency also has gone to court almost four times as often to seek emergency orders to halt misconduct compared with a year earlier. To interview Mr. Teakell about SEC investigations, contact Mark Annick at 800-559-4534 or mark@androvett.com.