backOn January 7, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed without prejudice an anonymous accounting firm’s lawsuit against the PCAOB on mootness grounds after the PCAOB filed a stipulation of dismissal stating that it was closing its investigation into the firm.
A PCAOB spokesperson said the PCAOB made the decision not to pursue the enforcement proceeding “based on the facts and the law,” adding that the “dismissal of the case . . . in no way addressed, analyzed, or affirmed the merits of the arguments Plaintiff made in that case.”
The anonymous firm originally filed its lawsuit against the PCAOB in March 2024, seeking to stop the Board from enforcing an Accounting Board Demand issued by the Division of Enforcement and Investigations in what the plaintiff claimed was a two-year investigation into one of its financial statement audits. The complaint also alleged that the PCAOB was structurally unconstitutional because its leadership is neither appointed by nor held accountable to the President and that the SEC does not provide “meaningful supervision, oversight or direction” over the Board.
The case is John Doe Corp. v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, No. 4:24-cv-01103 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 7, 2025). The accounting firm was represented by Dickinson Wright PLLC and the New Civil Liberties Alliance. The PCAOB was represented by Jackson Walker LLP and Munger Tolles & Olsen. A copy of the stipulation of dismissal is linked here, and a copy of the original complaint is linked here.