SEC v. Ways and Means

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against the House Committee on Ways and Means to enforce subpoenas seeking documents as well as the testimony of Brian Sutter, the committee’s staff director. The subpoenas were issued in the course of the SEC’s “investigating whether material nonpublic information concerning the April 1, 2013 announcement by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of 2014 reimbursement rates for the Medicare Advantage program was leaked improperly to certain members of the public in advance of CMS’s announcement, and whether such action resulted in insider trading in violation of the federal securities laws.” Apparently the SEC believes that Sutter may have been one source of information relied on by a Greenberg Traurig lobbyist (presumably Mark Hayes, although he is not named in the complaint) who provided advance notice of the rate announcement to a securities firm.

This has the potential to be a really big deal, both from a legal perspective (the House is resisting the subpoenas on Speech or Debate grounds, among other things) and as a political headache for the House and its leadership. For now, I will just post a copy of the complaint, which is pretty interesting.