The Musk and Cuban amicus brief ICAN filed in 2022 just paid off: SEC Ends Gag Rule
- Nicolas Morgan
- 8 minutes ago
- 4 min read
A Win Years in the Making
May 19th, 2026
Dear ICAN Partners,
Last week, this headline appeared in Bloomberg:
The Musk-and-Cuban thread running through the coverage is not incidental. It traces back to one of the very first amicus briefs ICAN ever filed. In May 2022, at the inception of our organization, ICAN filed a brief in Romeril v. SEC on behalf of Mark Cuban, Phillip Goldstein, Elon Musk, and Nelson Obus, challenging the SEC’s “Gag Rule” and standing up for investor access to information about SEC settlements.
Since then, our team has continued to work tirelessly to challenge the unjust and destructive rule, most recently with the brief I wrote to you about a few weeks ago in Powell v. SEC, filed with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of twelve former SEC enforcement attorneys. The named petitioner who sought Supreme Court review is Tom Powell, an ICAN advisory board member and client.
And just yesterday, the SEC finally rescinded the Gag Rule.
After becoming the norm in the early seventies, the Gag Rule forced anyone who settled with the agency to agree, for the rest of their life, never to publicly deny the SEC's allegations against them. With 98% of SEC defendants settling, the rule muted criticism of the agency's enforcement actions for the past 50 years and exempted the SEC from the very standard it holds everyone else to—transparency.
The rule has also ruined the careers and lives of countless Americans. As we demonstrated in our Powell brief, just being the subject of an SEC enforcement announcement imposes substantial and measurable harm on the accused, independent of any actual finding of liability. For those without the resources to challenge accusations made by a government agency that has proven itself willing to spend untold millions pursuing even the most insignificant of cases, the destructive cloud of doubt has followed them ever after.
Now, at long last, a half-century of forced silence and injustice has come to an end. Defendants who settle with the SEC are now free to publicly dispute the agency's framing of their cases—allowing them to defend their lives and businesses and also giving critical information to investors.
As I wrote in the last newsletter, change of this kind takes a full-court press—raising awareness, fighting on every available front, and meeting the moment when a Commission finally signals that it actually wants to do better. That is exactly what happened here. Years of litigation, amicus briefs, public writing, and coalition-building converged on a single outcome that benefits every American who has ever been silenced by an SEC settlement they couldn't afford to fight.
This is what compounding work looks like – the kind of steady, strategic engagement that is the hallmark of ICAN’s efforts.
Welcoming Another Experienced Voice to ICAN's Board
Our Board of Directors is pleased to welcome Marc Wolf as our new Board Treasurer. A former partner at CohnReznick Advisory LLC (now retired), Wolf has more than 40 years of experience in audit, tax, and consulting services specializing in hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, private REITs, regulated investment companies, registered investment advisors, and broker-dealers. Marc is the former Chairperson, current Advisory Board Chair, and co-founding member of CalALTs (the California Alternative Investments Association). Marc brings the kind of experience and judgment that will help us continue building on what we have accomplished so far—and expand our capacity to take on the cases and policy fights ahead. We could not be more pleased to have him join us.
Between Sripetch at the Supreme Court, the Powell brief, and the Pattern Day Trader rule reform, ICAN had a lot to focus on last month. But there are a few other things worth your attention that you may have missed—a handful of recent podcast episodes I wanted to flag below.
With gratitude,
Nick Morgan
Founder and President of ICAN
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