Office of Risk Assessment

The Office of Risk Assessment (ORA) is responsible for coordinating the SEC’s risk management program. ORA was formed in 2004 to help the SEC anticipate, identify, and manage risks, focusing on early identification of new or resurgent forms of fraud and illegal or questionable activities. ORA focuses on risk issues across the corporate and financial sector, including issues relevant to corporate disclosure, market operation, sales practices, new product innovation, and many other activities of financial market participants.

ORA’s responsibilities can be grouped into three general categories:

1. Information Analysis. A key component of ORA’s activities is to analyze data on new industry trends and risks from a variety of sources, such as external experts, domestic and foreign agencies, industry and financial services, empirical data and other market data.
    
2. Managing the agency’s risk assessment process. ORA develops and maintains the overall process for risk assessment throughout the SEC, such as defining relevant risk frameworks and common risk language.
    
3. Serving as the agency’s risk management resource. ORA serves as a resource for each division and office in their risk assessment efforts, working closely with them as they work to identify, prioritize and mitigate risks.

Contact Information:

The Office of Risk Assessment welcomes dialogue with market participants. If you have particular concerns about emerging or resurging risks you would like to share with our office, you can reach us directly by telephone at (202) 551-4363, by email at ORA@SEC.GOV, or by mail at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Attn: Office of Risk Assessment, 100 F St. NE, Washington, D.C. 20549.

http://www.sec.gov/about/offices/ora.htm