The US Supreme Court holds that structural constitutional agency challenges can proceed in Federal District Court (Axon / FTC)

The U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the consolidated cases of Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran on Friday, April 14, 2023, holding that “the review schemes in the Exchange Act and FTC Act do not displace district court jurisdiction” over petitioners’ “far-reaching constitutional claims” challenging the structure of the agencies. In both cases, the parties sought to bring claims that the relevant administrative law judges (at either the FTC or SEC) were unconstitutionally protected from removal by the President, in violation of separation-of-powers principles. Axon additionally claimed that the FTC unconstitutionally combined prosecutorial and