Eric I. Bustillo

Eric Bustillo ran the SEC's enforcement and examination programs in the Southeast for fifteen years. Now he defends the companies, executives, and financial professionals on the other side of it. As the former Director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office, and before that Deputy Chief of Economic Crimes at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he knows how the government decides whether to open an investigation, how it builds and coordinates one across agencies, and how it chooses to resolve it, because for years those decisions were his.

Director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office

From 2010 to 2025, Bustillo led one of the SEC's busiest regional offices and a staff of more than 100 lawyers, accountants, and examiners across Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Under his direction the office investigated and litigated issuer-disclosure and accounting cases, insider trading, offering fraud, FCPA violations, market manipulation, broker-dealer and investment-adviser misconduct, municipal-securities fraud, and cybersecurity and digital-asset matters, including emergency actions requiring court-appointed receivers. He represented the agency in dealings with the DOJ, the CFTC, FINRA, the PCAOB, other federal agencies and state and local authorities.

Federal Prosecutor and Regulator

Bustillo reached the Regional Director's chair by way of both the Justice Department and the SEC. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida for fifteen years, serving his last five as Chief of the Economic and Environmental Crimes Section, where he supervised the office's most complex white-collar prosecutions, from securities and corporate fraud to health-care, financial-institution, and tax fraud and money laundering, and conducted grand jury proceedings, jury trials, and appeals. He had begun his career as a Staff Attorney and Branch Chief at the same SEC office he would one day lead.

That vantage point gives clients a rare read on how the SEC, the DOJ, and other agencies open, coordinate, and resolve investigations. At Fridman Fels & Soto, Bustillo represents public traded and privately held companies, corporate executives, board members and individuals in SEC enforcement actions and investigations, securities litigation, SEC whistleblower matters, and white-collar defense.