Meta, FTC Ask That Their Action Be Stayed Pending SCOTUS Decision in Jarkesy

The parties in Meta’s constitutional challenge of the FTC’s administrative enforcement proceeding against the company for alleged privacy violations want the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stay the action, pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision in SEC v. Jarkesy (docket 22-859), said their joint meet and confer statement Monday (docket 1:23-cv-03562). The parties propose submitting a further joint meet and confer statement within 14 days of the SCOTUS ruling, it said. At stake in Jarkesy is whether the statutory provisions that empower the SEC to initiate and adjudicate administrative enforcement proceedings seeking civil penalties violate the Seventh Amendment. Also at stake is whether statutory provisions that authorize the SEC to choose to enforce the securities laws through an agency adjudication instead of filing a district court action violate the nondelegation doctrine. The case also asks whether Congress violated Article II by granting for-cause removal protection to administrative law judges in agencies whose heads enjoy for-cause removal protection. Jarkesy was argued Nov. 29. Meta’s complaint challenges the constitutionality of the FTC’s “five structural characteristics” that render its actions against Meta “unconstitutional” (see 2311300039). Meta alleges that the FTC is structured so that in “administrative adjudications,” including the proceeding against Meta, the agency “has a dual role as prosecutor and judge,” in violation of the due process clause. It also alleges that FTC commissioners also exercise executive authority while being “unconstitutionally insulated from removal” by the president. Congress has delegated to the FTC power to assign disputes to administrative adjudication rather than litigating them before an Article III court, in violation of Article I of the Constitution, alleges Meta.