By: Derek Hawkins//June 21, 2017//
United States Supreme Court
Case Name: Kokesh v. Securities and Exchange Commission
Case No.: 16-529
Focus: Disgorgement
Because SEC disgorgement operates as a penalty under §2462, any claim for disgorgement in an SEC enforcement action must be commenced within five years of the date the claim accrued “The definition of “penalty” as a “punishment, whether corporal or pecuniary, imposed and enforced by the State, for a crime or offen[s]e against its laws,” Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657, 667, gives rise to two principles. First, whether a sanction represents a penalty turns in part on “whether the wrong sought to be redressed is a wrong to the public, or a wrong to the individual.” Id., at 668. Second, a pecuniary sanction operates as a penalty if it is sought “for the purpose of punishment, and to deter others from offending in like manner” rather than to compensate victims. Ibid. This Court has applied these principles in construing the term “penalty,” holding, e.g., that a statute providing a compensatory remedy for a private wrong did not impose a “penalty,” Brady v. Daly, 175 U. S. 148, 154”
Reversed
Dissenting:
Concurring: