The U.S. Supreme Court handed a big victory to the Securities and Exchange Commission this month when it refused to review a lower court’s ruling that the Commission has broad power under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to freeze “extraordinary payments” to company officers that are made when the SEC is investigating possible wrongdoing.
A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals initially held in May 2004 that the SEC did not have the power under SOX to block $37.6 million in severance payments to the former chief executive officer and chief financial officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International.
