The SEC has disbanded a group of enforcement lawyers who helped bring litigation fighting misleading environmental, social and governance disclosures for more than three years.

The agency shut down the Climate and ESG Task Force within its Enforcement Division within the past few months, an agency spokesperson told Bloomberg Law.

The group was launched with nearly two dozen staffers in March 2021, under then-Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee, and SEC Chair Gary Gensler continued it when he arrived at the agency in April 2021. The task force went on to help with cases against Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Brazilian miner Vale SA and others.

The SEC last directly referenced and linked to the task force in a September 2023 press release announcing a $25m settlement with Deutsche Bank AG.

Rules that require companies to report details about their workforce management and board members’ diversity are among the unfinished items.

The task force’s end comes after the SEC dropped ESG from a list of priorities for its examiners checking investment firms for compliance with agency rules last year.

And, at this point in 2024, it’s questionable as to whether the SEC can finish major ESG regulations that still are pending in the five months Gary Gensler may have as the Commission’s chair when a new president takes office in January. Rules that require companies to report details about their workforce management and board members’ diversity are among the unfinished items.

The SEC downplayed the significance of the task force’s shuttering and said through a spokesperson: “The strategy has been effective, and the expertise developed by the task force now resides across the Division.”