One of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s core enforcement powers may soon be overhauled or even scrapped entirely. For fifty years the SEC has sought “disgorgement” of the proceeds of unlawful activity as one of its main remedies in federal court, even though there is no explicit statutory authority for doing so. On March 3, 2020, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Charles C. Liu and Xin Wang v. SEC, No. 18-1501, in which the Justices have agreed to consider whether courts can order disgorgement as an “equitable remedy” for a violation of the securities laws. This post discusses the case’s legal backdrop, some of the ways the Court could decide it, and some of its potential consequences. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Daniel Walfish
The Post-Lucia Executive Order on ALJs
Last week, the White House, reacting to the Supreme Court’s June 21, 2018 decision in Lucia v. SEC, issued an Executive Order exempting Administrative Law Judges, or ALJs, from the competitive civil service. This post considers what the order might mean for the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies that use ALJs to adjudicate enforcement cases. Lucia held that the SEC’s ALJs are “officers” subject to the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which means they have to be appointed by (as relevant here) the head of the agency – that is, the SEC’s Commissioners. Previously ALJs were hired through an examination-based process handled by the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM (effectively the human resources department of the federal government). OPM typically presented an agency with a list of eligible candidates ranked on the basis of the examination, among other things, and the agency selected an ALJ from among the top three candidates on the list. Continue reading