Supreme Court: PCAOB members can be fired 'at will'.

• Position: LEGAL - Public Company Accounting Oversight Board - Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 - Securities and Exchange Commission - Brief article

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the authority to remove members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) "at will" instead of "for cause."

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The five-member oversight board, whose formation was required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), is charged with overseeing auditing firms. Most legal experts say the 5-4 ruling is nothing more than an administrative change to the law.

The lawsuit challenging SOX was fried by the Washington-based Free Enterprise Fund, which calls itself a non-profit group working to limit government. In papers filed with the court, the group contended that U.S. businesses spent $35 billion in compliance costs during the first year SOX regulations were in...