Starr leads conservative constitutional assault on Sarbanes-Oxley oversight board News
Starr leads conservative constitutional assault on Sarbanes-Oxley oversight board

[JURIST] In the latest legal assault on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [PDF text], conservative business organization the Free Enterprise Fund [official website] has asked former US solicitor general and Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr [Wikipedia profile], former US assistant attorney general Viet Dinh, and 2000 Bush legal team member Michael Carvin to challenge provisions of the law that set up the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) [official website]. The PCAOB is a four-member body tasked with overseeing accounting practices in publicly traded companies; consistent with the overall purpose of Sarbanes-Oxley, the board was created in response to the collapse of Enron [JURIST news archive] and the other corporate fraud scandals [JURIST news archive] that hit the headlines in 2002. The lawsuit argues that the PCAOB provisions violate the separation of powers doctrine by endowing the board with too much unchecked police power.

The case is set for oral argument before US District Judge James Robertson on June 29. Starr, now dean at Pepperdine University School of Law [academic website], suggests that it could wind up in the US Supreme Court [official website]. AP has more.

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