The Fifth Circuit on Friday granted a full-panel review of an accountant’s challenge to the constitutionality of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s administrative law judges.
The appellate court said in an order that a “majority of the circuit judges in regular active service” had voted in favor of rehearing the case brought by Michelle Helterbran Cochran, who alleges that the SEC’s proceedings against her violate separation-of-powers principles because its ALJs are “insulated from control by the president by multiple layers of for-cause removal restrictions.”
