SEC Loses Home Court Advantage
By: Daniel D. Hill
The recent Jarkesy decision ruled that the SEC’s in-house adjudication or administrative process violates the 7th Amendment’s right to a jury trial. Finding that an enforcement action brought by the SEC in the SEC’s own in-house administrative process is “akin to traditional actions at law to which the jury-trial attaches,” the Fifth Circuit concluded that persons subjected to such an enforcement action are entitled to a jury trial, which the SEC process does not afford.