To review: On July 2, 2013, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the SEC’s resource extraction rules which were mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act. Oxfam America then brought a suit against the SEC in Federal Court in Massachusetts seeking a court order to require the SEC to adopt the rules. See our prior blog here.
And the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has now ruled the SEC’s action violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The Court concluded that the SEC’s delay in promulgating the final extraction payments disclosure rule can be considered “unlawfully withheld” as the duty to promulgate a final extraction payments disclosure rule remains unfulfilled more than four years past Congress’s deadline.
The Court ordered the SEC to file with the Court in 30 days an expedited schedule for promulgating the final rule. The Court will make further orders as necessary. As such, the Court will retain jurisdiction to monitor the schedule and to ensure compliance.
