Dropped Accountant Cases May Lead to Federal Court Bars: SEC Roundup

Welcome to SEC Roundup, a bimonthly video series by former Securities and Exchange Commission senior trial counsels Nick Morgan and Tom Zaccaro, founders of the nonprofit advocacy group Investor Choice Advocates Network.

With no explanation, the SEC recently dropped pending, contested administrative proceedings against several accountants, some of which had been pending for years.

In this episode, Morgan and Zaccaro talk with former SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney, who’s now a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, about his federal court litigation against the SEC on behalf of one of those accountants, and how that federal court action and the Supreme Court’s recent affirmation of jury rights in SEC v. Jarkesy, may have forced the SEC’s hand.

Ceresney believes that, going forward, the SEC may move away from administrative proceedings in accountant cases, given recent legal challenges, and may instead attempt to impose equitable bars through federal courts, though this is an aggressive approach.

See the video for the discussion with Ceresney.