Standard Investment Chartered v. National Ass’n of Securities Dealers

This case presented the question whether private corporations that participate in regulating Wall Street (such as the New York Stock Exchange and the National Association of Security Dealers) are entitled to absolute immunity for fraudulent conduct that is incidental to their regulatory powers. In 2011, the Second Circuit held that NASD was entitled to immunity, and the plaintiffs filed a petition for certiorari. On behalf of Public Citizen, POGO, US PIRG, and Consumer Action, we filed an amicus brief in support of the petition. We argued that the immunity granted to these organizations was based on a theory of sovereign immunity, and that the petition should be granted to resolve the tension among circuit decisions applying sovereign immunity to non-sovereign entities and to provide guidance regarding when—if ever—non-sovereign entities are entitled to derivative sovereign immunity. In January 2012, the Supreme Court denied the petition to hear the case.