Skip to content

Allen & Overy files amicus brief in 5th Circuit in support of challenge to SEC short-selling and securities lending rules

On March 12, 2024, Allen & Overy filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation in support of the petitioners in National Association of Private Fund Managers, et al. v. Securities and Exchange Commission (23-60626). C. Wallace DeWitt, a senior counsel in the Washington, D.C. office, served as counsel of record on the brief.
The brief  contends that the simultaneously adopted short-selling rule and securities lending rule regulate substantially the same financial market activity albeit in a materially contradictory manner, in violation of both the Administrative Procedure Act and the agency’s cost-benefit analysis obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The brief requested the panel of the Fifth Circuit to invalidate the SEC’s final rules as “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”