In their FOIA lawsuit, filed in mid-June, Walker asked for internal SEC communications related to Almagarby and a handful of similar cases, all wins for the agency, after it failed to respond to their original request.
“Under the SEC’s extraordinarily broad legal theory in these cases, any business that regularly buys and sells securities must register as a ‘dealer,’” Walker wrote, suggesting such an interpretation would sweep up “virtually every hedge fund, investment company, and family office in the United States has been illegally operating as an unregistered dealer for decades.”
“These enforcement actions therefore present an issue—what it means to be a ‘dealer’ under the Exchange Act—of critical importance to our nation’s financial industry and securities markets,” the complaint warns.
Source: Gibson Dunn Builds Case Against SEC’s Broker-Dealer Enforcement | Law.com