Real people pay the price when the SEC cuts corners
- Nicolas Morgan
- Jan 22
- 6 min read
Why these stories won’t be heard without your help
January 22nd, 2026
Dear ICAN Partners,
I write today with a heavy heart. J.D. Jordan, one of ICAN’s earliest clients, has passed away. Mr. Jordan, who was 80 years old at the time of his death, spent the last years of his life challenging a deeply unfair SEC case over an inadvertent, non-fraud technical registration issue. He fought until the end, confident that justice would ultimately prevail. Sadly, he passed away without knowing whether the system he put his faith in would finally do the right thing.
ICAN, however, will continue the fight – for Mr. Jordan, for his family, and for the thousands of other Americans facing ruinous SEC judgments over minor technical violations, despite no allegations of fraud or investor harm. With the blessing of Mr. Jordan’s family, we will continue to work to resolve his case – a case the SEC continues to pursue, despite Mr. Jordan’s passing – and we are working earnestly to ensure that the United States Supreme Court has a chance to rule on the question of whether the SEC has the right to impose massive financial judgments, like those Mr. Jordan’s family now face, without proving that anyone was actually harmed.
Our Client, J.D. Jordan
A proud New Orleanian and Naval Reserve veteran, J.D. Jordan built a successful career as a market professional over decades of hard work. Yet rather than enjoying his golden years, Mr. Jordan spent the end of his life fighting an avaricious government agency that threatened not just his financial security but also the long-term security of his wife of 37 years and his family. Now, even in their grief, his family is facing the same fight, as the SEC continues to burn through taxpayer dollars seeking a financial judgment that would add up to far less than the government has already spent trying to obtain them – all over a technical violation that Mr. Jordan had been assured was no violation at all.
The SEC never accused Mr. Jordan of fraud. They never claimed he lied or caused anyone to lose money. His case arose from a technical registration issue tied to stock transactions he made only after doing what regulators tell people to do: hiring a reputable lawyer, obtaining a written legal opinion, and in good faith after receiving that advice.
The SEC ultimately found that the attorney had "drastically failed to comply with the rigorous due diligence obligations of an attorney writing a legal opinion letter" and failed to investigate multiple red flags despite the lawyer representing that he had "conducted all required due diligence" before opining that Mr. Jordan could sell the stock without violating securities registration requirements. But, in addition to going after the attorney who gave the advice, the SEC went after Mr. Jordan himself.
In filing a federal court case against Mr. Jordan for a paperwork violation, the SEC demanded that he give up all earnings from his transactions. This, despite the fact that there were no victims to repay. The money the SEC is now seeking to take from Mr. Jordan’s family would not go to anyone who was harmed. It would go to an SEC slush fund, where money taken by the SEC often ends up when there are no victims to be repaid.
Today, the billions of dollars (according to the FY 2024 SEC Report) sitting in that account stands as an alarming testament to the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent pursuing victimless violations and the countless lives of Americans – like Mr. Jordan’s – ruined by the SEC’s reliance on excessive punishments.
The SEC claims such cases are about deterrence. But you cannot deter someone who tried to do the right thing (as Mr. Jordan did) or someone who committed an inadvertent technical violation, thanks in no small part to the ever-growing web of regulation strangling our market system. What this approach really does is make enforcement easier for the government—while destroying the lives and legacies of well-meaning professionals who never intended to break the rules.
ICAN refuses to accept that outcome.
We will continue fighting on behalf of J.D. Jordan’s estate to ensure his family receives what he worked a lifetime to build. At the same time, we are working to ensure that when the United States Supreme Court rules on victimless disgorgement – forcing people to give up their earnings even when no one was harmed – they do so with a full picture of how far the SEC has taken this egregious practice.
As we noted in our last update, the federal government had asked the Supreme Court to step in and settle a circuit court split over victimless disgorgement. The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the case the government pointed to: SEC v. Sripetch, a case without any victims, but one where there are allegations of fraud. ICAN has filed an amicus brief in the case, and we are encouraged that the Court is finally taking up this issue. But we are deeply concerned about what it means for cases where the SEC has gone even further—seeking the same punishment in cases with no fraud at all. This is why ICAN is fighting to bring forward the cases—and the people—that show how damaging this practice has become.
Our team at ICAN, along with our co-counsel at Paul Hastings, is working urgently to ensure that our own case, SEC v. Barry, is considered by the Supreme Court when it decides Sripetch. The difference in the two cases matters. Sripetch involves alleged fraud. Barry does not. Our clients are ordinary professionals, like Mr. Jordan, who followed the rules as they understood them, caused no harm, and yet still face devastating financial judgments. Taken together, these cases show just how far the SEC’s approach has drifted from basic fairness—and how high the stakes truly are.
At its core, Sripetch asks whether the SEC can keep taking people’s money when there are no victims to compensate. The reason the agency fights so hard to preserve this power is not because Congress left it without tools to address wrongdoing in other ways—it is because this tool makes enforcement easier.
When the SEC believes someone has truly done wrong, Congress has already given it a clear remedy: penalties, which come with guardrails. They have limits. They often require the government to prove its case to a jury. And they force the SEC to play by the rules Congress deliberately put in place.
Disgorgement avoids those constraints, and by seeking it, the SEC can ask a judge to impose massive financial judgments without a jury, without clear limits, and without proving that anyone was actually harmed. In practice, this has allowed the SEC to trample the rights of people who got in the way of its push to make enforcement faster, easier, and more certain.
This unfair and unconstitutional practice cannot continue.
By seeking to have the Court consider Barry when it decides Sripetch, we will make it clear to the Court the stakes involved and offer a compelling push for the Justices to draw a clear line and finally put an end to this abuse.
If you are able, I ask you to stand with us—to help fund not only the legal work required to fight these cases, but also the effort to elevate and share the real stories behind them, so the public and the courts see what is actually happening beyond the headlines. Your support is what allows ICAN to stay in these cases when individuals cannot, and to turn personal injustice into lasting limits on government power.
With gratitude,
Nick Morgan
Founder and President of ICAN
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