- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
From the 5th Circuit’s 8-page opinion:
Independently, the government has made a strong showing against the Businesses’ facial challenge to the CTA. The Supreme Court has been clear that a successful facial “challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987). In other words, “[t]he fact that [a statute] might operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid.” Id.; see also United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680, 701 (2024) (confirming that, when assessing facial challenges, courts must “consider the circumstances in which [the statute is] most likely to be constitutional” instead of “focus[ing] on hypothetical scenarios where [the statute] might raise constitutional concerns.”). Here, the CTA at least operates constitutionally when it requires that corporations engaged in business operations affecting interstate commerce disclose their beneficial owner and applicant information to the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”). See Raich, 545 U.S. at 17. Thus, the statute is likely constitutional on its face. See Salerno, 481 U.S. at 745.
***
Similarly, the government has satisfied the third and fourth Nken factors by showing “that the balance of the equities weighs heavily in favor of granting the stay.” See Ruiz v. Estelle, 650 F.2d 555, 565 (5th Cir. Unit A June 1981). To start, the harm that a stay would cause the Businesses is minimal. FinCEN estimated that a typical, simple company would spend about ninety minutes (or about $85 worth of time) to complete and file CTA’s required report, which may be filed for free. 87 Fed. Reg. 59498, 59589–90 (Sept. 30, 2022). The Businesses neither contend that they have more complex structures that would require more time or money, nor state their potential costs with any particularity.