US court ruling: SEC's "broker rule" exceeded statutory authority and was revoked

PANews reported on November 22 that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s final rule on the "Dealer Rule" exceeded its statutory authority and declared the rule invalid. The court pointed out that the SEC's expansion of the definition of "broker" is inconsistent with the text, history and structure of the Securities Exchange Act, and the scope of the rule is too broad and may unreasonably cover trading activities in DeFi protocols.

The court held that the SEC's attempt to simply define trading activities as market liquidity provision and classify them as "brokers" failed to reflect the legal distinction between brokers and ordinary traders. Ultimately, the court ruled to revoke the rule and emphasized that the SEC did not follow a reasonable decision-making procedure when making the rule, which violated the Administrative Procedure Act.