The Securities and Exchange Commission said that it plans to rehear dozens of cases that were pending before its in-house administrative-law judges, following a June Supreme Court ruling that faulted the appointment process for those judges, the Wall Street Journal reported. The agency, in an order yesterday revealing how it was responding to the ruling, said that it had reappointed the judges to comply with the court holding. The SEC said that it would give all the cases pending before the in-house judges, or that had been appealed to the five-member commission, the opportunity for a new hearing. The order said that the agency would start fresh on all of the cases, telling the judges they “shall not give weight to or otherwise presume the correctness of any prior opinions, orders, or rulings.” The SEC halted activity in administrative cases after the Supreme Court’s ruling, which said the agency’s judges must be appointed by the commissioners themselves rather than by SEC employees. The SEC uses in-house courts for about 20 percent of all litigated actions brought by the agency.
