WASHINGTON, DC, Feb. 01, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, submitted a motion amicus curiae short before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit today, urging the court to address a recurring scourge in administrative regulation: the “switcheroo,” in which an agency, without explanation, abruptly reverses prior policy guidance and wreaks havoc on property and public trust interests wreaks that this policy had produced . The NCLA brief argues that agencies must provide reasoned explanations and cannot act arbitrarily or capriciously when withdrawing previous guidance that was binding on the agency in the face of vested interests.

PredictIt Market provides investors with a platform to trade contracts that predict the likely outcome of elections and other major political events. In 2014, the CFTC approved the establishment of the trading market, assuring its creators that the market could function lawfully under the Commodities Exchange Act. Now, after investing millions of dollars and years of sweat capital to build and operate the market, the CFTC pulled the rug out from under its operators and asked them to shut everything down by the seemingly arbitrary date of February 15, 2023 – or else . Many thousands of third party traders have invested in PredictIt Market contracts over the years, some of which remain open.

The Administrative Procedures Act (VVG) requires courts to set aside actions by public authorities that are “arbitrary, arbitrary, an abuse of power or otherwise inconsistent with the law”. Exceeding this low bar is the least we expect from unelected administrators tasked with promulgating and enforcing ever-expanding regulations. But here the CFTC could not raise the bar. The agency acted haphazardly and capriciously by reversing course on PredictIt Market without considering trust interests and without providing a reasonable explanation for disregarding those interests.

This lawsuit provides the fifth…