The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has won its bid to have a lawsuit accusing it of conducting unconstitutional disciplinary proceedings moved to a D.C. District court from the Northern District of Texas.
U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer granted the Board’s request Wednesday to transfer the case but declined to dismiss the lawsuit altogether. The Board has argued the lawsuit brought by an anonymous accountant is “defective in numerous other threshold respects.”
The plaintiff, going by John Doe, previously worked as an auditor at a firm in Colombia, according to his lawsuit. Doe alleges in his suit that he became the target of a Board investigation after his alleged failure to cooperate with an audit of an unnamed company that has offices in Texas.
Doe has accused the Board of lodging an “unconstitutional prosecution of him in secret disciplinary proceedings.”
Doe contended the lawsuit should stay in Texas because the company’s U.S. operations are based in Texas and that it’s one of the states “geographically closest” to Colombia.
His first argument is “unpersuasive,” Scholer wrote in her order, and his second argument is “even less compelling.”
“Plaintiff does not allege that defendant’s Texas offices or employees were involved in the inspection, investigation, or disciplinary proceeding in any way and does not explain how defendant registering to do business in Texas relates to his claims,” Scholer wrote.
The Board is a nonprofit corporation created by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies and SEC-registered brokers.
Doe is represented by Katherine Addleman and Ronald Breaux of Haynes Boone, Russell Ryan of New Civil Liberties Alliance and Ian Roffman of Nutter McClennen & Fish.
The PCAOB is represented by Donald Verrilli Jr., Elaine J. Goldenberg, Ginger D. Anders, Dahlia Mignouna and Elissa A. Walter of Munger Tolles & Olson, Paul Watler, Marc Fuller and Hannah Walsh of Jackson Walker and Jeffrey Lamken of MoloLamken.
The United States is represented by Richard Guiltinan of the Department of Justice.
The case number is 3:23-cv-00149.