Stuart M. Gerson, Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Health Care & Life Sciences practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, and New York offices, was quoted in Law360.
In the article by Rachel Scharf, Stuart discusses a June 2024 Supreme Court of the United States decision and its impact on Sarbanes-Oxley coverage of obstructive conduct. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
… Friday's 6-3 high court decision held that in order to bring charges for obstruction of official proceedings under Section 1512(c)(2) of the U.S. Code — established as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act following the Enron scandal in 2002 — prosecutors must establish that a defendant interfered with the documents or records for that proceeding. …
This development will send prosecutors back to the drawing board for cases that remain pending, and the lower courts could see a slew of so-called 2255 motions to vacate convictions and sentences.
"It will upend previous cases, there's no doubt about it," said Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker Green, who served as acting attorney general during President Bill Clinton's administration. "The assumption at the time of these pleas or the trials was that Sarbanes-Oxley covered this obstructive conduct. Well, it doesn't."
