On September 30th, the NAM filed an amicus brief urging the Middle District of Tennessee to vacate the SEC’s recission of the rule. As in our case, plaintiffs U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, and Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, brought this challenge to the 2022 rescission arguing that it is both substantively arbitrary and capricious several times over and was adopted without good-faith observance of the Administrative Procedure Act’s mandated rulemaking procedures. Both cases seek to have the 2022 recission vacated ahead of the 2023 proxy season. Our amicus brief expands on the plaintiffs’ position that the concerns about proxy firms that animated the 2020 proxy firm rule have not abated, that the SEC failed to provide meaningful opportunity for comment prior to rescission of the 2020 rule, and that the SEC’s policy reversal is arbitrary and capricious.
Unfortunately, on April 24, 2023, the court denied the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and granted the SEC's cross-motion.