backOn June 9, 2026, in Doe v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (No. 1:24-cv-00780), the D.C. Circuit issued an unpublished opinion affirming the district court’s denial of an accountant’s motion to proceed under a pseudonym in his lawsuit “raising constitutional challenges to the PCAOB’s funding scheme, the appointments of and removal protections for its officers, and its adjudicative system.” The court applied the five-factor test from In re Sealed Case, 931 F.3d 92 (D.C. Cir. 2019), weighing (1) “whether the justification asserted by the requesting party is merely to avoid the annoyance and criticism that may attend any litigation or is to preserve privacy in a matter of sensitive and highly personal nature;” (2) “whether identification poses a risk of retaliatory physical or mental harm;” (3) “the ages of the persons whose privacy interests are sought to be protected;” (4) “whether the action is against a governmental or private party;” and (5) “the risk of unfairness to the opposing party.”
With respect to the first factor, the court held that Doe’s concerns about professional reputational harm were “different in kind” from the intimate personal matters that “traditionally warrant pseudonymity.” Doe conceded that neither factor two or three weighed in his favor, and with respect to factor four, the court explained that the public interest in transparent litigation weighed against anonymity given Doe’s broad challenges to the Board’s “operations and existence.” Finally, the Board conceded factor five supports Doe because the Board is already aware of Doe’s identity. In considering the totality of the five-factor test, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the accountant’s motion to proceed pseudonymously.
The court also rejected Doe’s argument that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act provides a right to statutory pseudonymity explaining that its confidentiality provisions “do not cover the identities of subjects of Board proceedings but instead the documents and information generated in the Board’s investigations and the contents of Board hearings.”
The opinion can be found here. The PCAOB is represented by Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP and MoloLamken LLP. Doe is represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, Burr & Forman, LLP, and Nutter, McClennen & Fish LLP.