Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_83-cv-00711/USCOURTS-cand-3_83-cv-00711-12/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Joseph S. Amundsen
Defendant
Securities And Exchange Commission
Plaintiff

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE

COMMISSION,

Plaintiff,

 v.

JOSEPH S. AMUNDSEN,

Defendant. /

No. C 83-00711 WHA

ORDER DENYING PETITION

TO VACATE INJUNCTION

Pro se defendant Joseph S. Amundsen has filed a petition so “that the 1983 injunction be

vacated . . .” (Dkt. No. 55 at 1). 

The background of this action is found in prior orders (see, e.g., Dkt. No. 39). In brief,

this action was reassigned from Judge Robert P. Aguilar to the undersigned judge in 2010. That

came after defendant, a then-certified public accountant, had voluntarily signed a consent “Final

Judgment of Permanent Injunction” with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1983, due

to defendant’s deficient audit report on a financial statement for Olympic Oil and Gas Company,

Inc. As a result, the 1983 consent judgment permanently enjoined defendant from “appearing or

practicing before the Commission in any way,” among other things (Dkt. No. 3 at 3). 

From 1983 to at least 1998, defendant was no longer licensed as a certified public

accountant and prepared no documents filed with the Commission. By 2003, however,

defendant had regained his license, and began a niche practice of auditing financial statements of

broker-dealers. He then filed those statements — along with his audit reports — with the

Commission, doing so more than a thousand times. An order dated January 19, 2012, therefore

directed defendant to cease preparation of all audit reports destined for filing with the

Commission, given that the 1983 consent judgment contained a no-practice bar against defendant

Case 3:83-cv-00711-WHA Document 62 Filed 11/21/14 Page 1 of 2
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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(Dkt. No. 39). Thereafter, defendant brought three requests to vacate the 1983 consent

judgment, all of which were denied by the undersigned judge. 

Now, the essence of defendant’s present petition is this: the 1983 consent judgment

should be vacated because (1) the Commission failed to disclose a ten-year statute of limitations

that purportedly applies to his obligation to disclose the 1983 consent judgment and license

revocation, (2) the 1983 consent judgment is supposedly “non-specific” as to what defendant can

or cannot do thereunder, and (3) defendant reportedly “has had no other regulatory issues” since

1983 (Dkt. No. 55 at 2). 

While the present petition is silent as to the authority that permits such a request to

vacate, this order construes the petition under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) and (6). 

Those rules may permit relief from a final judgment, either because “applying [the judgment]

prospectively is no longer equitable or because of “any other reason that justifies relief.”

Having reviewed full briefing from both sides, the present petition is DENIED. As a

preliminary matter, this order finds that there is no ten-year statute of limitation that applies to

the Commission in the way that defendant now contends. At most, defendant cites the Financial

Industry Regulatory Authority’s Rule 8312, which governs how FINRA — not defendant —

releases information through FINRA’s BrokerCheck tool, an electronic search engine that

provides information about FINRA-member firms and associated persons to the public. Put

another way, Rule 8312 does not govern defendant’s disclosure obligations. Nor does that rule

impact the length of time for which the 1983 consent judgment is effective, much less provide

some ten-year statute of limitations that defendant now claims. 

This order further finds that defendant’s other arguments for his present petition are

unpersuasive, especially as those arguments have already been made (and lost) on his earlier

requests for vacating the 1983 consent judgment (see, e.g., Dkt. Nos. 5, 14, 26). 

The present petition is therefore DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 21, 2014. 

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 3:83-cv-00711-WHA Document 62 Filed 11/21/14 Page 2 of 2