Elon Musk, Mark Cuban team up to contest SEC trial strategies
Elon Musk, Mark Cuban and others have collaboratively submitted a shared amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States to raise concerns about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approach to conducting internal proceedings without the inclusion of juries.
Mark Cuban, a billionaire crypto investor and decentralized finance (DeFi) advocate who actively engages in the cryptocurrency space, and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who recently rebranded Twitter into X and wields influence and controversy in crypto, both assert that these administrative proceedings produce disparate outcomes for individuals facing SEC charges. Consequently, this approach has raised concerns about the potential infringement of the U.S. Constitution’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
The context of this legal challenge centers around the SEC vs. Jarkesy case. George Jarkesy contends that his Seventh Amendment rights were violated in this specific case. He argues that the SEC’s internal adjudication process, which lacks a jury and is overseen by an administrative law judge appointed by the commission, contradicts these rights. This effectively results in a single entity fulfilling the roles of judge, jury and enforcer.
Musk, Cuban and other amici curiae highlight a shift in the SEC’s approach between 2013 and 2014. They observed that the SEC started handling more cases internally rather than through federal courts. This change occurred after a string of unsuccessful insider trading cases were tried before juries.
Musk is facing his third notable legal dispute with the financial regulatory agency. This comes in the wake of prior lawsuits in 2018 and 2019. Currently, the regulatory body is pursuing the involvement of a federal court to request Musk’s testimony regarding his acquisition of Twitter, with a specific focus on his public statements about the transaction, as disclosed in legal records.
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Nonetheless, the amici curiae maintain a steadfast position, contending that opting for administrative proceedings over the option of federal court juries runs counter to the SEC’s stated mission. Furthermore, such decisions could potentially negatively impact investors and the markets the SEC is committed to protecting.
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Politics
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh downplays risk of empty shelves if farmers strike over inheritance tax
Shelves will not be left empty this winter if farmers go on strike over tax changes, a cabinet minister has said.
Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, said the government would be setting out contingency plans to ensure food security is not compromised if farmers decide to protest.
Farmers across England and Wales have expressed anger that farms will no longer get 100% relief on inheritance tax, as laid out in Rachel Reeves’s budget last month.
Welsh campaign group Enough is Enough has called for a national strike among British farmers to stop producing food until the decision to impose inheritance tax on farms is reversed, while others also contemplate industrial action.
At the weekend the group held a protest in Llandudno, North Wales, where Sir Keir Starmer was giving his first speech as prime minister to the Welsh Labour conference.
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Asked by Trevor Phillips if she was concerned at the prospect that shelves could be empty of food this winter, Ms Haigh replied: “No, we think we put forward food security really as a priority, and we’ll work with farmers and the supply chain in order to ensure that.
“The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be setting out plans for the winter and setting out – as business as usual – contingency plans and ensuring that food security is treated as the priority it deserves to be.”
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From April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.
However, farmers – who previously did not have to pay any inheritance tax – argue the change will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh
Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers Union, said he had “never seen the united sense of anger that there is in this industry today”.
“I don’t for one moment condone that anyone will stop supplying the supermarkets,” he said.
“We saw during the COVID crisis that those unable to get their food were often either the very most vulnerable, or those that have been working long hours in hospitals and nurses – that is something we do not want to see again.”
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Farmers ‘betrayed’ over tax change
Explaining why the tax changes were so unpopular, he said food production margins were “so low”, and “any liquid cash that’s been available has been reinvested in farm businesses” for the future.
“One of the immediate changes is that farms are going to have to start putting money into their pensions, which many haven’t previously done,” he said.
“They’re going to have to have life insurance policies in case of a sudden death. And unfortunately, that was cash that would previously have been invested in producing the country’s food for the future.”
Sir Keir has staunchly defended the measure, saying it will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
However, the Conservatives have argued the changes amount to a “war on farmers” and have begun a campaign targeting the prime minister as a “farmer harmer”.
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‘Farmers’ livelihoods are threatened’
Speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he was happy with farmers protesting against the budget – as long as their methods and tactics were “lawful”.
“What the Labour government has done to farmers is absolutely shocking,” he said.
“These are farmers that, you know, they’re not well off particularly, they’re often actually struggling to make ends meet because farming is not very profitable these days. And of course, we rely on farmers for our food security.
Addressing the possible protests, Mr Philp said: “I think people have a right to protest, and obviously we respect the right to protest within the law, and it’s up to parliament to set where the law sits.
“So I think providing they’re behaving lawfully, legally, then they do have a right to protest.”
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Next week farmers are expected to hold a mass protest of about 20,000 people in Westminster against the inheritance tax changes.
After Elon Musk announced the government agency with the same acronym as Dogecoin’s ticker, the crypto token soared to a yearly high of $0.39.
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