The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lost some of its power after the Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday invalidating the agency’s internal system used to pursue civil fraud penalties, a decision that prompted liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to read her dissent aloud from the bench, The Hill reported.
The 6-3 decision, with conservatives in the majority, states that the SEC’s in-house administrative courts, which have been the agency’s major tool for enforcement, are unconstitutional. This outcome hurts not just the SEC's regulatory enforcement efforts but potentially those of other federal agencies, the Biden administration warned.
