Opinion ID: 2802953
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Petitioner’s Other Arguments

Text: The Commission also rejected Pierce’s affirmative defenses of equitable estoppel, judicial estoppel, and waiver. Pierce raises these defenses again in his petition for review. We hold that the Commission correctly rejected each asserted defense. A party asserting equitable estoppel against the government must show that “the government engaged in affirmative misconduct.” Keating v. FERC, 569 F.3d 427, 434 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Estoppel generally requires that government agents engage – by commission or omission – in conduct that can be characterized as misrepresentation or concealment, or, at least, behave in ways that have or will cause an egregiously unfair result.” GAO v. Gen. Accounting Office Pers. Appeals Bd., 698 F.2d 516, 526 (D.C. Cir. 1983). Pierce does not assert that the Government engaged in “misrepresentation or concealment.” Thus, he does not establish the affirmative misconduct element of his equitable estoppel claim. Therefore, it is unnecessary for us to consider the remaining elements of equitable estoppel. Keating, 569 F.3d at 434 n.1 (“As Keating’s claim to estoppel fails at this first step, we need not consider the remaining estoppel elements; our silence does not imply that he would be any more successful on those elements.”). Pierce also argues that judicial estoppel barred the Division from asserting the fraudulent concealment exception 19 to res judicata in the second proceeding. Br. of Petitioner 44. Judicial estoppel “generally prevents a party from prevailing in one phase of a case on an argument and then relying on a contradictory argument to prevail in another phase.” New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 749 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). In support of this claim, Pierce contends that [t]he Division successfully opened the record and submitted the “unconcealed” FMA (Liechtenstein) evidence supporting its “unconcealed” $7.5 million claim in the First Proceeding. Later, in the Second Proceeding, the Division took the inconsistent position that fraudulent concealment had prevented assertion of the $7.5 million (Corporate Accounts) claim in the First Proceeding. Yet, the Division had actually asserted the unconcealed claim in the First Proceeding, the ALJ denied the claim, and the ALJ signaled the Division to ask the Commission to disgorge, or delegate to the ALJ the authority to disgorge, the additional $7.5 million. The Division, however, did not heed the ALJ’s warning and now backtracks to assert the inconsistent claim that fraudulent concealment of material facts prevented the Division from the [sic] asserting the claim in the First Proceeding. Br. of Petitioner 45–46 (footnote omitted). This argument makes no sense. The ALJ denied the Division’s request to expand the charges in the first enforcement action. Thus, Pierce’s fraudulent concealment of material facts effectively precluded the Division from pursuing the charges relating to the corporate accounts in the first enforcement action. When the Division belatedly sought to amend the OIP in the first enforcement action, it assuredly did not argue that there had 20 been no fraudulent concealment. And when the ALJ ruled that she lacked authority to “expand the scope of matters set down for hearing beyond the framework of the original OIP,” First Proceeding, 2009 WL 1684743, at , she certainly did not address the fraudulent concealment issue. In short, there is nothing to indicate that the Division prevailed in the first enforcement action on an argument related to fraudulent concealment and then relied on a contradictory argument to prevail in the second enforcement action. Finally, Pierce contends that the SEC erred in concluding that the Division did not waive a claim for additional disgorgement in the first enforcement action. On this point, Piece maintains that the Division effectively “abandoned the option of a separate action when it moved to admit the new evidence” at the conclusion of the first enforcement action. Br. of Petitioner 47. In other words, Pierce again argues that the Division’s charges relating to the corporate accounts were “actually litigated” in the first enforcement action and, therefore, could not be raised again in the second enforcement action. We need not tarry over this argument. As noted above, the charges in the second enforcement action indisputably were not litigated in the first action. Therefore, the SEC was not precluded from pursuing the second action on the basis of the fraudulently concealed evidence.