Law 360 wrote about HLLI’s amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case National Small Business United v. Department of the Treasury, opposing the Department of Justice’s emergency motion to stay a district court’s nationwide injunction against the enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).
The Fourth Amendment arguments received support in an amicus curiae brief filed Monday by Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute. The group took issue with what it described as the compelled disclosure of sensitive information coupled with “the government’s unfettered access to the data stored in a government database specifically for the purpose of conducting criminal investigations.”
These features of the CTA are fundamentally at odds with the Fourth Amendment, Hamilton Lincoln said.
Neville Hedley, counsel for Hamilton Lincoln, told Law360 on Monday that his group thinks the district court was correct.
“But if the appellate court is a little bit apprehensive about affirming it on the other constitutional grounds, particularly the commerce clause, we believe, like the appellees, that there [are] adequate grounds for ruling that the CTA is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment,” he said.
Read more at Law 360.