Why should it cost someone $12 million to tell their side of the story?
- Nicolas Morgan
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
A dismissal for J.D. Jordan. A new challenge to the SEC's Gag Rule. A hard-won win on market access.
A Week That Tells the Whole Story
April 23rd, 2026
Dear ICAN Partners,
The work of ICAN compounds quietly. Cases move through the courts on their own timelines. Briefs get drafted, filed, answered. Policy comments go in, and months later, the rules change. Most weeks, the progress is real but not always visible. And then there are weeks like this one, when years of work converge all at once.
In the past several days, ICAN was at the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments in SEC v. Sripetch. We saw one of our own clients' cases—J.D. Jordan's—dismissed on the eve of those arguments. We filed a new amicus brief in Powell v. SEC challenging the SEC's decades-old "Gag Rule." And we saw FINRA formally adopt the reforms to the Pattern Day Trader rule that ICAN had publicly pushed for, with our comment letter cited in the SEC's approval order.
Four fronts. One mission. And behind each of them, real people ICAN’s work is impacting.
Sripetch Reaches the Court. Our WSJ Op-Ed Sharpens the Stakes.
"Victimless disgorgement" is the SEC's practice of forcing defendants to hand over money in cases where no investor was ever harmed. It is exactly the kind of issue where compounding work pays off. ICAN has tackled it from every angle—direct litigation on behalf of numerous clients that put real faces on an abstract legal question; amicus briefs that sharpen the arguments at hand; and a steady drumbeat of public writing to make sure the stakes are understood far beyond the legal community.
On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in SEC v. Sripetch, the case that could finally answer whether the agency can extract "disgorgement" from defendants without ever identifying a single harmed investor. ICAN filed two amicus briefs in the case (one on behalf of our clients, one presenting the views of former SEC enforcement attorneys), showing the Court how frequently the SEC uses this tool to destroy people's lives over technical infractions—in ways Congress never intended.
That is the foundation of the argument most of the Sripetch coverage missed, and the one I laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published ahead of the arguments. No one is saying fraud should go unpunished. What we are saying is that the SEC has a tool for punishing wrongdoers—and it is deliberately refusing to use it, because the tool comes with guardrails the agency would rather avoid.
That disconnect was on full display at oral argument, where our co-counsel, Sarah Concannon and Rachel Frank Quinton of Quinn Emanuel observed the SEC unable to answer a fundamental question:
"Disgorgement exists to make injured investors whole. Today at the Supreme Court, the SEC could not say how much of the money it collects in disgorgement cases ever reaches victims. ICAN's amicus brief in Sripetch v. SEC puts real faces on that failure—investors and defendants caught in enforcement actions where no pecuniary harm was ever established and there were no victims to repay. We hope the Court restores the remedy to its proper purpose."
On the Eve of Sripetch, a Dismissal J.D. Jordan Didn't Live to See
On the eve of oral argument in Sripetch, we received word that the SEC had dismissed its case against our client, the late J.D. Jordan.
J.D. spent the last years of his life challenging a deeply unfair SEC case over an inadvertent, non-fraud technical registration issue. He was 80 years old when he died last winter, still fighting. The SEC had not accused him of fraud or intentional misconduct—only of a technical violation—and yet it pursued him for disgorgement anyway, seeking to take money from a man who had relied on qualified legal counsel and harmed no one. His family carried the fight forward, and we carried it with them. The dismissal is a win—but one that came far too late for J.D. and his family.
And he is not the only one waiting. Across ICAN's docket are ordinary Americans—sales consultants, a retired insurance agent, a relief defendant never accused of any wrongdoing—all pursued by the SEC for disgorgement in cases where no one was harmed. Every one of them is waiting for the Court to do what the agency will not: put real limits on a tool Congress never intended to be used this way.
That is why Sripetch matters. And it is why we continue to challenge this issue from every angle.
From left to right: Tom Rose, Jamie Quick, J.D. Jordan, and Eric Cannon
These are four of the 11 total clients of ICAN whose cases involve victimless disgorgement. To learn more about our work to end this practice, visit this page.
A New Amicus Brief in Powell v. SEC: Taking On the SEC's 50-Year Gag Rule
On the same day that the Supreme Court heard Sripetch, ICAN filed an amicus brief in Powell v. SEC on behalf of twelve former SEC attorneys. The brief asks the Supreme Court to review the SEC's so-called "Gag Rule"—the fifty-year-old policy that forces anyone who settles with the agency to agree, for the rest of their life, never to publicly deny the SEC's allegations against them.
The brief, signed by twelve former SEC enforcement officials, makes a point no other challenger has made this sharply:
This Gag Rule isn't theoretical unfairness. It is destroying lives and businesses.
Highlights from our brief:
From 2017 to 2023 alone, the Gag Rule silenced an estimated 2,700 defendants. Ninety-eight percent of SEC defendants settle—not because they concede guilt, but because the cost of fighting the agency is financially ruinous. All of them are silenced for life.
The defendants who can afford to fight get the truth out. The rest don't. Mark Cuban turned down a $2 million settlement, spent $12 million in legal fees, and was found not liable unanimously in less than five hours. Afterward, he said defendants "of lesser wealth could have been bullied."
Firms targeted by SEC enforcement lose 38% of their market value on announcement alone—and two-thirds of that loss is reputational, driven by the allegations themselves, not by any legal penalty.
93% of individuals named in SEC enforcement actions lose their jobs, most of them fired outright—often before any finding of liability.
Congress built the securities laws on the principle that investors deserve the full picture—and that deliberately suppressing material facts is fraud. The SEC has spent decades enforcing that principle against private parties. The Gag Rule exempts the agency from the very standard it holds everyone else to. Why should it cost someone $12 million to tell their side of the story?
The pattern across so much of how the SEC operates—and fights so hard to keep operating in this way—is that it shields the agency from scrutiny. That is a dangerous posture for any institution, and an especially troubling one for the agency Congress charged with protecting the integrity of our capital markets. Investors, entrepreneurs, and the public rely on the SEC to do the right thing. They also deserve to see their work. A regulator that silences the people who know its record best is not protecting the markets. It is protecting itself.
Pattern Day Trader Rule Reformed—with ICAN's Fingerprints On It
And finally, a win years in the making. On April 14, the SEC formally approved FINRA's elimination of the Pattern Day Trader rule—the arbitrary $25,000 minimum equity requirement that created a two-tiered market where only wealthy investors could actively trade. The rule change takes effect June 4.
ICAN had called for exactly this reform in our 2025 SEC Action Plan, and we filed a comment letter in support, along with expert opinions featured across our podcasts and blogs. The SEC's approval order cites our letter by name. One more barrier to market access for everyday American investors is now gone.
When the Work Compounds, Weeks Like This Happen
Victimless disgorgement is being heard at the Supreme Court. A dismissed case for one client. A new amicus brief for thousands of silenced defendants. A hard-won reform that opens the markets to more Americans.
ICAN is advancing meaningful, lasting change on multiple fronts, but none of these things happened on their own. They happened because ICAN has built the infrastructure—the litigation docket, the amicus program, the policy submissions, the public communications capacity—to push on every lever at once. Court-won change outlasts election cycles. And this week is what it looks like when years of work come together.
We are grateful to everyone who makes this possible. The road to the Supreme Court ruling in Sripetch—expected by July—is built on the support of people who believe, as we do, that real people should not have to pay the price when the SEC cuts corners.
With gratitude,
Nick Morgan
Founder and President of ICAN
P.S. I think often about J.D. Jordan's family, and about the clients on our docket who are still waiting. They are the reason this work matters. If this week's work meant something to you, forward this email to one person who should be watching with us. The SEC operates best when no one is looking—that is exactly why we need more people paying attention.
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