CIR carries Peekaboo point
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, nicknamed “Peekaboo”) was unconstitutional as originally conceived. Before so ruling (and as a necessary step to doing so), the Court agreed with CIR that Peekaboo was not protected from judicial review, but could be sued by accounting firms affected by its decisions. CIR had filed an amicus brief in the case.
The Court also found that because of Peekaboo’s unprecedented two layers of “good-cause” removal protection for its members, it was too insulated from the will of the people to exercise the sweeping authority it has over the accounting industry.