The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to reinstate a federal anti-money laundering law at the request of the federal government while a legal challenge continues in a lower court.
The court’s emergency stay temporarily halts a federal judge’s injunction that had blocked the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which mandates that millions of business entities disclose personal information about their owners, noting that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter.
Late last month, the Biden-era Justice Department requested the high court’s intervention, and the court issued its ruling just three days after President Trump’s inauguration. While Trump’s Justice Department did not withdraw the application,
Passed as part of the annual defense bill in early 2021, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) requires millions of small business owners to provide personal information, such as dates of birth and addresses, to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which aims to combat money laundering and other crimes, the report continued.
The dispute has drawn significant attention from business groups and anti-regulatory advocates, who are working to delay the impending deadline, the outlet added.
“The case will now return to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will weigh the Justice Department’s defense of the law as a valid exercise of Congress’s constitutional authority over interstate commerce,” The Hill said. “In the meantime, the justices’ order paves the way for officials to implement the disclosure requirement, which had been set to go into effect this month.”
Jackson, the only justice appointed to the court by former President Biden, was the sole dissenter, arguing that the government had not demonstrated “sufficient exigency” and pointing out that the 5th Circuit was already hearing the government’s appeal on an expedited schedule.
“The Government deferred implementation on its own accord—setting an enforcement date of nearly four years after Congress enacted the law—despite the fact that the harms it now says warrant our involvement were likely to occur during that period,” she wrote in her dissent.
