[Read about how the numbers were calculated.]

The S.E.C. has said that it should be judged by the overall impact of its cases, not by financial penalties alone, and that its enforcement efforts have been undercut by recent Supreme Court rulings and budget restrictions. In a statement, the S.E.C. disputed The Times’s approach to assessing the agency’s record, suggesting that the conclusions were based on “deeply flawed methodology.”

The Justice Department has said that the number of defendants prosecuted for white-collar crime trended downward during the second half of the Obama administration. The department has also highlighted its focus on other priorities, like violent crime.

Here are four key takeaways from The Times’s reporting:

After President Trump took office, some companies and banks under investigation looked to his administration for a more sympathetic ear — and they got one

In the final stretch of the Obama administration, a number of companies felt that the Justice Department and the S.E.C. were pursuing investigations and settlements that were unreasonable. Walmart was under pressure from federal officials to pay nearly $1 billion and accept a guilty plea to resolve a foreign bribery investigation. Barclays was facing demands that it pay nearly $7 billion to settle civil claims that it had sold toxic mortgage investments that helped fuel the 2008 financial crisis, and the Royal Bank of Scotland was ensnared in a criminal investigation over its role in the crisis. In the case of Walmart, it became increasingly difficult at the end of the Obama administration to get the company’s lawyers to schedule meetings.

Walmart had reason to hope that the Trump administration might be more sympathetic. After the Walmart bribery scandal first came to light in an investigation published in The Times in 2012, Mr. Trump, then a real estate mogul with international holdings, said on CNBC that it was unfair to expect a company like Walmart not to engage in bribery when doing business overseas. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he said, was a “horrible law, and it should be changed.”

Federal prosecutors and the S.E.C. have yet to charge Walmart.

The Justice Department did reach a settlement with Barclays, but it was for a much lower amount ($2 billion) than the Obama administration had sought. The bank’s decision not to settle with the Obama Justice Department paid off.