Supreme Court Takes Measured Approach to Regulatory Power in Major June Decisions

About this episode

The episode discusses recent Supreme Court decisions affecting regulatory power and enforcement tools.

The Supreme Court’s biggest recent move was a pair of decisions on June 4 that gave regulators a partial win. In FCC v. AT&T, the Court said the FCC’s forfeiture process does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the agency’s orders are not self-executing and the Justice Department must still go to court to collect penalties. In Sripetch v. SEC, the justices unanimously held that the SEC can seek disgorgement without proving investors suffered actual financial loss, preserving an important enforcement tool. Those rulings came just after another notable action on June 2, when the Court granted interim relief to Alabama in Allen v. Milligan, allowing the state temporary breathing room from a lower-court injunction in a voting-rights dispute. The Court’s recent docket also included Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., where it said Amarin did not state a valid claim for induced patent infringement, ending that appeal at the motion-to-dismiss stage. Taken together, the latest headlines suggest the Court is still willing to scrutinize agency power, but it is not uniformly hostile to regulators; instead, it has been drawing narrower lines around procedure and…

Topics covered

• Supreme Court decisions
• regulatory power
• enforcement tools
• voting rights
• agency scrutiny

Keywords

• Supreme Court
• regulatory power
• FCC
• SEC
• voting rights
• enforcement
• disgorgement
• patent infringement

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: FCC, AT&T, Justice Department, SEC, Alabama, Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Amarin Pharma, Inc.

More episodes of Supreme Court Tracker - SCOTUS News

• Supreme Court's Final Stretch: Major Rulings Expected on Voting, Immigration, and Transgender Rights Before June Deadline · June 12, 2026 · 3 min
• Supreme Court Issues Major Rulings on Pharma Patents, SEC Enforcement, and Federal Agency Power Amid Legitimacy Concerns · June 10, 2026 · 3 min
• Supreme Court Weakens Voting Rights Protections in Controversial Alabama Redistricting Decision · June 8, 2026 · 1 min
• Supreme Court Races to End Term With Major Rulings on Trump Immunity, Abortion Access, and Presidential Power · June 5, 2026 · 3 min
• Supreme Court's Blockbuster Decisions on Presidential Immunity, Abortion, and Social Media Set to Reshape 2024 and Beyond · June 3, 2026 · 3 min
• Supreme Court Voting Rights Rulings Reshape 2026 Election Redistricting Battles · May 20, 2026 · 3 min