In Hedge Fund Alert, Jeremiah Williams and Amy Jane Longo Comment on Supreme Court Rulings in Jarkesy and Chevron

In The News
July 8, 2024

In a recent article for Hedge Fund Alert, litigation & enforcement partners Jeremiah Williams and Amy Jane Longo discussed the impact of the Jarkesy and Loper Bright rulings on financial industry lawyers.

Jeremiah noted the SEC has been bringing more cases in federal district court, and if the SEC were adjudicating a case like Jarkesy today, it likely would have opted to bring it in federal court. He also shared the SEC should retain the ability to adjudicate in-house cases other than fraud actions seeking financial penalties.

“There are lot of SEC rules that I think are probably relatively safe because they’re technical in nature,” said Jeremiah, but added the Jarkesy ruling is expected to be of considerable consequence to other federal agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that pursue civil penalties via administrative proceedings.

“Even thought it’s an SEC case, the biggest impact is probably going to be outside the SEC context,” Jeremiah said.

One day after the Jarkesy ruling the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference.

“While some have questioned whether the formal demise of Chevron will be that big a deal – as the Supreme Court has often seemed to ignore the Chevron framework in recent years – the express overruling of Chevron will likely have a very significant effect, even though it will not entirely displace judicial consideration of agency views,” said Amy.

Amy added that even as the Supreme Court has “routinely ignored” Chevron, the lower courts have continued to rely upon the Chevron framework. With the high court’s ruling, those lower courts will have to “grapple with the canons of construction to determine what the best interpretation of the statute is,” said Amy.