Justice Thomas Cited ICAN by Name

Nicolas Morgan
4 hours ago
4 min read

The SEC Won the Easy Question.

ICAN Is Positioned to Fight the Hard One.

June 18th, 2026

Dear ICAN Partners,

With its recent decision in Sripetch v SEC, the Supreme Court handed the SEC a unanimous win—allowing the regulatory body to continue imposing ruinous judgments on ordinary Americans over minor (and often unintentional) infractions, even when there are no victims to whom that money can be returned.

Though a disappointing outcome—and a devastating blow to too many Americans currently facing SEC judgments that could ruin their lives over minor infractions that harmed no one—we see real opportunity in the decision. While the case went the SEC's way, the Court left a clear door open for ICAN to carry on the fight over victimless disgorgement—and several of our cases are positioned to walk right through it.

Going in, we knew Sripetch—which the SEC strategically asked the Court to take up—wasn't the strongest vehicle to challenge victimless disgorgement because, among other things, it involved admitted fraud (for just this reason, ICAN represents clients not accused of fraud or of stealing investor money). But the ICAN team did what we could, filing two amicus briefs to help ensure the Justices could rule with a full understanding of the issue and the real-world stakes involved—and it worked: the Court cited ICAN by name, used our data, and laid out the very argument we need a future case to win.

Rather than a setback to ICAN’s efforts to cement real limits on the SEC's power to seek ruinous judgments with no jury and no proof of harm, the Court’s decision represents a valuable opening that our team is moving quickly to seize.

Here's what you need to know about the Sripetch decision.

1. Justice Thomas cited ICAN by name. In his written opinion, Justice Thomas relied on our brief for a striking fact: in 2024 the SEC collected $6.1 billion in disgorgement while returning only $345 million to actual victims. He used our data to argue that the agency's practice looks less like fairness and more like a government fines machine. Being cited by name in a Supreme Court opinion is a marker of ICAN’s credibility in this fight.

2. A Justice put the jury-trial argument on the table—formally. Justice Thomas also urged the Court to rule, in a future case, that when the SEC seeks disgorgement, the defendant is entitled to a jury trial. That argument now lives inside a Supreme Court opinion, waiting for the right case to take it up. And ICAN already has cases moving through the lower courts that present exactly that opportunity.

3. The Court told the SEC its practice is on borrowed time. The decision may turn out to be an empty victory for the agency. Here's why: The Court said the SEC no longer has to prove that investors lost money. But it left a harder question unanswered: when the SEC collects disgorgement, does it actually have to return that money to real, identifiable victims? In many of these cases, there are no such victims to find—which means the SEC is left facing the same problem it had all along. It won the easy question and dodged the hard one.

There's a second opening just as important: Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion rests on the premise that Sripetch's victims suffered an invasion of their "legally protected interests" — and the Court was explicit that cases where that predicate is missing were not before it. The SEC cannot cite Sripetch as a blank check for disgorgement in cases where no investor's legal rights were actually invaded. That carve-out is where several of ICAN's cases live.

The Justices clearly acknowledged the issue of victimless disgorgement—the very issue ICAN has been fighting since our founding. Sripetch simply did not give them the right case to rule on it. The right case will put that question squarely before the Justices. And we have the cases to do it—at different stages, but each the right kind of case for this moment.

This is the fight your support makes possible. ICAN built this portfolio deliberately, case by case, so that when the Court finally signaled it was ready to hear the victimless-disgorgement question, we would already have the right cases in hand. We do. But carrying them to the Supreme Court takes resources, and the window the Court just opened will not stay open forever.

A gift today—whether $100 or $10,000—goes directly to moving these cases forward: the briefs, the experts, the years of litigation it takes to turn an open question into a settled limit on the SEC's power. This is an investment in a permanent guardrail that will protect ordinary Americans long after this ruling fades from the headlines, protecting freedom and fairness in our capital markets.

Will you help us walk through the door the Court just opened?

With gratitude,

Nick Morgan

Founder and President of ICAN

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