Court Opinion

ID: 9442262
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:41:27.843599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:01.880426
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Now that there is pending before us an appeal from the district court’s decision, it is somewhat academic to consider the propriety of the direct appeal under Section 24(a). However, since my colleagues have seen fit to hold that the latter appeal must be dismissed, I think it appropriate to record my dissent.
While the Supreme Court, in S. E. C. v. Central-Illinois Securities Corp., 338 U.S. 96, 69 S.Ct. 1377, did not have occasion to consider, and therefore did not specifically over-rule, what we decided in Okin v. S. E. C., 2 Cir., 145 F.2d 206 (and the other Circuit Court decisions cited by my colleagues), I think it clear that the reasoning of the Supreme Court in Central-Illinois destroyed the premises on which we rested our conclusion in the Okin case.
It should be noted, too, that, under the Okin doctrine the S. E. C. is able to determine which circuit court is to review an S. E. C. Section 11(e) order. This appears from the following: (1) Without a voluntary request from the affected company, the S. E. C. cannot bring an action in the district court to enforce its Section 11(e) order. (2) Absent such a voluntary request, a review must be a direct review under Section 24(a). (3) But the S. E. C. has adopted a practice of conditioning any order it makes under Section 11(e) so that that order will have no effect until approved by the district court. This condition virtually compels the company to make a “voluntary” request to the Commission to seek enforcement, i. e., the request is actually not voluntary. (4) By arranging to file such an enforcement suit in the district court, in that district in which the company is domiciled, a few minutes after *338the entry of the Commission’s order,1 the Commission is able, under the Okin doctrine, to insure that no circuit court other than that of the circuit in which the corporation is domiciled will review the order. (5) By this tactic, the S. E. C., in effect, nullifies Section 24(a) as to Section 11(e) orders. I doubt whether Congress intended such a result.

. Since the S. E. C. alone knows when it will issue its order, it can have someone waiting in the district court ready to file suit as soon as he is advised by telephone that the S. E. O. has entered its order.