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Yesterday, in Lucia v. SEC, the SCOTUS held that the SEC’s appointment process for its ALJs violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. As this excerpt from the opinion’s syllabus notes, the Court’s decision was based primarily on its earlier decision in Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868 (1991), which held that Tax Court “special trial judges” were “officers of the United States” for purposes of the Appointments Clause:

Freytag’s analysis decides this case. The Commission’s ALJs, like the Tax Court’s STJs, hold a continuing office established by law. SEC ALJs “receive[ ] a career appointment,” to a position created by statute. And they exercise the same “significant discretion” when carrying out the same “important functions” as STJs do. Both sets of officials have all the authority needed to ensure fair and orderly adversarial hearings – indeed, nearly all the tools of federal trial judges.

The Trump Administration’s decision to “switch sides” in this case & support the argument that the SEC’s ALJs were unconstitutionally appointed might suggest that the case was decided along partisan lines. But that’s not what happened.  Justice Kagan delivered the Court’s opinion, and the Chief Justice and Justices Thomas, Kennedy, Alito & Gorsuch joined in the opinion.  Justice Breyer also concurred – in part – in the Court’s decision. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor & Breyer (in part) dissented. We’re posting memos in our “SEC Enforcement” Practice Area.

What About Prior ALJ Decisions?

As we’ve previously blogged, some have suggested that the decision to invalidate the SEC’s appointment process for its ALJs might call into question the validity of prior decisions.  The Lucia Supreme Court didn’t speak to that issue directly, but if you’re interested in reading tea leaves, check out this excerpt from Justice Kagan’s opinion:

This Court has held that “one who makes a timely challenge to the constitutional validity of the appointment of an officer who adjudicates his case” is entitled to relief. Ryder v. United States, 515 U. S. 177, 182–183 (1995). Lucia made just such a timely challenge: He contested the validity of Judge Elliot’s appointment before the Commission, and continued pressing that claim in the Court of Appeals and this Court.

That emphasis on a “timely challenge” suggests that parties who didn’t make a timely objection to the ALJ’s authority in their particular case may be out of luck if they try to challenge a decision now.  Or maybe not – look, I mostly played softball in law school, so don’t expect profound insights on SCOTUS opinions from me.

SEC to Consider Proposed Changes to “Smaller Reporting Company” Definition

According to this “Sunshine Act” notice, the SEC will consider adopting proposed amendments to the definition of the term “smaller reporting company” at an open meeting to be held next Thursday, June 28th. Other items of interest on the agenda include:

– Consideration of a proposed rule amendment that would mandate the use of “Inline XRBL” – which allows filers to embed XRBL data in filings – in operating company financial statement information and mutual fund risk/return summaries.

– Whether to propose amendments to the SEC’s whistleblower rules.

– John Jenkins