SEC Avoids Political Contribution Lawsuit
via Bloomberg News
“The Securities and Exchange Commission won its bid Jan. 4 to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to force it to adopt a rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose political contributions.
Plaintiff Stephen Silberstein can’t show that the SEC’s failure to respond to his petition for rule-making violated a “clear legal duty,” Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held. In addition, she stated, the district court doesn’t have jurisdiction to consider the issue, which is better left for a federal appeals court to decide.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, 588 U.S. 310 (2010), which allowed companies to spend unlimited corporate funds on political contributions, the Committee on Disclosure of Corporate Political Spending submitted a petition to the SEC seeking corporate disclosure regulations (153 SLD, 8/9/11). In 2013, the SEC announced that it would be considering whether to propose a rule requiring corporate disclosure of political contributions (06 SLD, 1/9/13). The rule never came about.”
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