The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider one of the growing number of legal challenges to the Securities and Exchange Commission use of in-house administrative courts.
Canadian stock promoter Gordon Brent Pierce had petitioned the court to rehear his case, which an SEC administrative law judge ruled in May 2015 could continue.
A similar challenge to the constitutionality of the process brought by institutional timber manager Timbervest LLC got underway April 22 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In August 2014, an SEC administrative law judge ruled against the firm and its executives in a case alleging improper fees from cross trades of land from a separate account managed for the BellSouth Corp. pension fund (now part of the $45.2 billion AT&T Inc. pension fund, Dallas) and a Timbervest commingled fund. Timbervest officials are also fighting to have a final SEC decision.