Court Opinion

ID: 9427182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:58.658571+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:05.303649
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
I join the Court in its judgment, but I am less sure than the Court is that the Congress has not granted the Securities and Exchange Commission at least some power to suspend trading in a nonexempt security for successive 10-day periods despite the absence of a new set of circumstances. The Congress’ awareness, recognition, and acceptance of the Commission’s practice, see ante, at 119-120, nn. 9 and 10, at the time of the 1964 amendments, blunts, it seems to me, the original literal language of the statute. The 1975 Report of the Senate *127Banking Committee, stating that the Commission was “expected to use” § 12 (j)’s amended suspension-of-registration provision “in cases of extended duration,” ante, at 122, certainly demands new circumspection of the Commission, but I do not believe it wholly extinguished Congress' acceptance of restrained use of successive 10-day suspensions when an emergency situation is presented, as for instance, where the Commission is unable adequately to inform the public of the existence of a suspected market manipulation within a single 10-day period. Section 12 (j)’s suspension remedy provides no aid when a nonissuer has violated the securities law, or where the security involved is not registered, or in the interim period before notice and an opportunity for a hearing can be provided and a formal finding of misconduct made on the record.
Here, the Commission indulged in 37 suspension orders, all but the last issued “quite bare of any emergency findings,” to borrow Professor Loss' phrase. Beyond the opaque suggestion in an April 1975 Release, No. 11,383, that the Commission was awaiting the “dissemination of information concerning regulatory action by Canadian authorities,” shareholders of CJL were given no hint why their securities were to be made nonnegotiable for over a year. Until April 22, 1976, see Release No. 12,361, the SEC provided no opportunity to shareholders to dispute the factual premises of a suspension, and, in the absence of any explanation by the Commission of the basis for its suspension orders, such a right to comment would be useless. As such, I conclude that the use of suspension orders in this case exceeded the limits of the Commission's discretion. Given the 1975 amendments, a year-long blockade of trading without reasoned explanation of the supposed emergency or opportunity for an interim hearing clearly exceeds Congress’ intention.