DOJ appeals District Court's ruling on the Corporate Transparency Act’s constitutionality

Courts DOJ Constitution Appellate Corporate Transparency Act

On April 15, the DOJ submitted a brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of an appeal of a summary judgment from the Northern District of Alabama that found the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) unconstitutional, specifically its reporting provision (covered by InfoBytes here). On appeal, the government emphasized that the District Court misunderstood the scope and purpose of the CTA and made two key errors in invalidating it. The first error, according to the DOJ, is that the court mistakenly viewed the CTA as merely regulating the act of filing the incorporation papers, which generally falls under State domain, as opposed to regulating commerce, which Congress has the power to regulate. As to the second error, the DOJ noted that the District Court mischaracterized the CTA as a “single-subject statute” that is unrelated to the federal government’s broader efforts to combat financial crimes, such as money laundering and terrorism financing. The DOJ pointed out that, ownership records often do not exist, which makes the CTA necessary in order to help investigators trace illicit funds by creating easily accessible ownership records. The DOJ also stressed that the determination by Congress that the CTA’s reporting requirements are necessary to detect and prosecute financial crimes should be subject only to “rational basis” review, a standard that the CTA satisfies.