SC case from June 27, 2024: Anons this is another big case, SEC v Jarkesy et al. The Fifth District court about 2 years ago ruled against SEC and in favor of investment adviser George Jarkesy, Jr., and his firm, Patriot28, LLC. Oh Yeah the DoddFrank Act has to be destroyed or negating, this act was really to protect the Banks and Investment firms and they all know this.
Now that the SC made this decision Congress needs to rewrite this law, so the SEC cannot use their secret court as a cudgel against a political or ideological enemy or for any other reason. The SEC set up, prevents the defendant a JURY TRIAL and the SEC, is the court, the prosecutor and jury altogether. I suspect after this win in the SC, you are going to see a boatload of firms suing the SEC, especially Elon Musk and Truth Social. SEC is notoriously bigoted and ideological and I'm sure a lot of money changes hands with Big Tech, to do them favors in the stock market. See brief of opinion.PDF attached
"These Acts respectively govern the registration of securities, the trading of securities, and the activities of investment advisers. Although each regulates different aspects of the securities markets, their pertinent provisions—collectively referred to by regulators as “the antifraud provisions,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 73a, 202a— target the same basic behavior: misrepresenting or concealing material facts. To enforce these Acts, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC may bring an enforcement action in one of two forums. It can file suit in federal court, or it can adjudicate the matter itself. The forum the SEC selects dictates certain aspects of the litigation. In federal court, a jury finds the facts, an Article III judge presides, and the Federal Rules of Evidence and the ordinary rules of discovery govern the litigation.
But when the SEC adjudicates the matter in-house, there are no juries. The Commission presides while its Division of Enforcement prosecutes the case. The Commission or its delegee—typically an Administrative Law Judge—also finds facts and decides discovery disputes, and the SEC’s Rules of Practice govern. One remedy for securities violations is civil penalties.Originally, the SEC could only obtain civil penalties from unregistered investment advisers in federal court. Then, in 2010, Congress passed the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Act authorized the SEC to impose such penalties through its own in-house proceedings.
Shortly after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC initiated an enforcement action for civil penalties against investment adviser George Jarkesy, Jr., and his firm, Patriot28, LLC for alleged violations of the “antifraud provisions” contained in the federal securities laws. The SEC opted to adjudicate the matter in-house. As relevant, the final order determined that Jarkesy and Patriot28 had committed securities violations and levied a civil penalty of $300,000. Jarkesy and Patriot28 petitioned for judicial review.
The Fifth Circuit vacated the order on the ground that adjudicating the matter in-house violated the defendants’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. Held: When the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial. Pp. 6–27.
(a) The question presented by this case—whether the Seventh Amendment entitles a defendant to a jury trial when the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud—is straightforward. Following the analysis set forth in Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, and Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412, this action implicates the Seventh Amendment because the SEC’s antifraud provisions replicate common law fraud. And the “public rights” exception to Article III jurisdiction does not apply, because the present action does not fall within any of the distinctive areas involving governmental prerogatives where the Court has concluded that a matter may be resolved outside of an Article III court, without a jury.
(b) The Court first explains why this action implicates the Seventh Amendment.
(1) The right to trial by jury is “of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that any seeming curtailment of the right” has always been and “should be scrutinized with the utmost care.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, 486. When the British attempted to evade American juries by siphoning adjudications to juryless admiralty, vice admiralty, and chancery courts, the Americans protested and eventually cited the British practice as a justification for declaring Independence. In the Revolution’s aftermath, concerns that the proposed Constitution lacked a provision guaranteeing a jury trial right in civil cases was perhaps the “To fix that flaw, the Framers promptly adopted the Seventh Amendment.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf