ALJ

My partner, Ken Berg, writes about his recent meeting with the NCLA, a group that anyone who has an administrative practice should be familiar with.  –  Alan

I had the privilege of being invited to attend in Washington, D.C., on February 28, 2019, the inaugural panel discussion hosted by a relatively new nonprofit civil rights…

Here is an important post by my partner, Ken Berg, regarding SEC administrative proceedings, and what we can expect following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lucia. – Alan

By now everyone knows the US Supreme Court declared the SEC’s administrative proceedings unconstitutional because the ALJs were improperly hired by the SEC staff instead of…

On January 12, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the constitutionality of the SEC’s appointment of its in-house administrative law judges (“ALJs” for short).

As we’ve discussed previously on the blog, a trip to SCOTUS seemed inevitable after the 10th Circuit handed down its decision in Bandimere, concluding that the SEC ALJs…

After spending the last few years ferociously denying that there was any constitutional issue with the manner in which SEC Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) were appointed to their position, this morning, the SEC announced that it had “ratified” the prior appointment of each of its ALJs – Murray, Foelak, Elliot, Grimes and Patil.   You can …

This one belongs in the “truth is stranger than fiction” category. By now, you are probably familiar with the exploits of Dawn Bennett, former hostess of her radio show, “Financial Myth Busting.” She was the one who the SEC permanently barred last year after she elected not to appear at her administrative hearing (after her…

In my second post on constitutionally-based affirmative defenses to SEC administrative proceedings, I discussed the shift of momentum in favor of the defense that the process of hiring SEC ALJs violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This post examines the defense that the process of removing SEC ALJs violates the separation of power…

Here is Part II of Ken Berg’s analysis of constitutional defenses that have been raised in response to the SEC’s increased use of administrative proceedings.  In the interest of full disclosure, note that the Malouf case referenced towards the end is one that Heidi VonderHeide and I are handling.  In addition, it also worth mentioning…

This is the first in a series of posts by my partner, Ken Berg, discussing the constitutional defenses to SEC administrative enforcement actions, which we are called upon regularly to defend. Each subsequent post will discuss one of the constitutional issues and report the current state of the law as to that defense.  Ken’s next…

Many industry authors – including me[1] – have devoted a lot of attention lately to the SEC’s increased use of Administrative Proceedings (rather than Federal court cases) in recent years, and questioned the fairness of such proceedings, given their relative lack of discovery tools, the short timeframe provided within which to prepare a case…