Timothy Belevetz is a Partner in the
Washington D.C. office and a Partner in the
Tysons office
An investment advisor could not convince the D.C. Circuit that
the recent Supreme Court decision in SEC v. Lucia meant an end to his
legal troubles. Instead of setting aside an SEC administrative
law judge (ALJ)'s multi-million dollar judgment against the
investment advisor and his firm, the D.C. Circuit remanded the case
back to the agency for a new hearing before a different ALJ.
In its June 2018 Lucia decision, the Supreme Court
found that the way in which the SEC appointed its administrative
law judges was unconstitutional and, accordingly, that the hearings
over which they presided were unconstitutional. In November 2017,
while the case was pending before the Supreme Court, the SEC
undertook to fix the defective appointment process by having the
appointments of all of its then-current ALJs ratified by the
commissioners themselves and requiring all future ALJs to be
