Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation Same v. Federal Water Gas Corporation 13 8212 16, 1946

• Decision Date: 23 June 1947
• Docket Number: Nos. 81 and 82,s. 81 and 82
• Citation: Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation Same v. Federal Water Gas Corporation 13 8212 16, 1946, 332 U.S. 194, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947)
• Parties: SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. CHENERY CORPORATION et al. SAME v. FEDERAL WATER & GAS CORPORATION. Argued Dec. 13—16, 1946
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

332 U.S. 194

67 S.Ct. 1575

91 L.Ed. 1995

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

v CHENERY CORPORATION et al.

SAME

v. FEDERAL WATER & GAS CORPORATION.

Nos. 81 and 82.

Argued Dec. 13—16, 1946.

Decided June 23, 1947.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 13, 1947. See 68 S.Ct. 26.

Mr. Roger S. Foster, of Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

[Argument of Counsel from page 195 intentionally omitted] Mr. Spencer Gordon, of Washington, D.C., for Chenery Corporation and others.

Mr. Allen S. Hubbard, of New York City, for Federal Water & Gas Corporation.

Mr. Justice MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case is here for the second time. In S.E.C. v. Chenery Corporation, 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626, we held that an order of the Scurities a nd Exchange Commission could not be sustained on the grounds upon which that agency acted. We therefore directed that the case be remanded to the Commission for such further proceedings as might be appropriate. On remand, the Commission reexamined the problem, recast its rationale and reached the same result. The issue now is whether the Commission's action is proper in light of the principles established in our prior decision.

When the case was first here, we emphasized a simple but fundamental rule of administrative law. That rule is to the effect that a reviewing court, in dealing with a determination or judgment which an administrative agency alone is authorized to make, must judge the propriety of such action solely by the grounds invoked by the agency. If those grounds are inadequate or improper, the court is powerless to affirm the administrative action by substituting what it considers to be a more adequate or proper basis. To do so would propel the court into the domain which Congress has set aside exclusively for the administrative agency.

We also emphasized in our prior decision an important corollary of the foregoing rule. If the administrative action is to be tested by the basis upon which it purports to rest, that basis must be set forth with such clarity as to be understandable. It will not do for a court to be com- pelled to guess at the theory underlying the agency's action; nor can a court be expected to chisel that which must be precise from what the agency has left vague and indecisive. In other words, 'We must know what a decision means before the duty becomes ours to say whether it is right or wrong.' United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 294 U.S. 499, 511, 55 S.Ct. 462, 467, 79 L.Ed. 1023.

Applying this rule and its corollary, the Court was unable to sustain the Commission's original action. The Commission had been dealing with the reorganization of the Federal Water Service Corporation (Federal), a holding company registered under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 803, 15 U.S.C.A. § 79 et seq. During the period when successive reorganization plans proposed by the management were before the Commission, the officers, directors and controlling stockholders of Federal purchased a substantial amount of Federal's preferred stock on the over-the-counter market. Under the fourth reorganization plan, this preferred stock was to be converted into common stock of a new corporation; on the basis of the purchases of preferred stock, the management would have received more than 10% of this new common stock. It was frankly admitted that the management's purpose in buying the preferred stock was to protect its interest in the new company. It was also plain that there was no fraud or lack of disclosure in making these purchases.

But the Commission would not approve the fourth plan so long as the preferred stock purchased by the management was to be treated on a parity with the other preferred stock. It felt that the officers and directors of a holding company in process of reorganization under the Act were fiduciaries and were under a duty not to trade in the securities of that company during the reorganization period. 8 S.E.C. 893, 915-921. And so the plan was amended to provide that the preferred stock acquired by the management, unlike that held by others, was not to be con- verted into the new common stock; instead, it was to be surrendered at cost plus dividends accumulated since the purchase dates. As amended, the plan was approved by the Commission over the management's objections. 10 S.E.C. 200.

The Court interpreted the Commission's order approving this amended plan as grounded solely upon judicial authority. The Commission appeared to have treated the preferred stock acquired by the management in accordance with what it thought were standards theretofore recognized by courts. If it intended to create new standards growing out of its experience in effectuating the legislative poliy, it fail ed to express itself with sufficient clarity and precision to be so understood. Hence the order was judged by the only standards clearly invoked by the Commission. On that basis, the order could not stand. The opinion pointed out that courts do not impose upon officers and directors of a corporation any fiduciary duty to its stockholders which precludes them merely because they are officers and directors, from buying and selling the corporation's stock. Nor was it felt that the cases upon which the Commission relied established any principles of law or equity which in themselves would be sufficient to justify this order.

The opinion further noted that neither Congress nor the Commission had promulgated any general rule proscribing such action as the purchase of preferred stock by Federal's management. And the only judge-made rule of equity which might have justified the Commission's order related to fraud or mismanagement of the reorganization by the officers and directors, matters which were admittedly absent in this situation.

After the case was remanded to the Commission, Federal Water and Gas Corp. (Federal Water), the surviving corporation under the reorganization plan, made an application for approval of an amendment to the plan to provide for the issuance of now common stock of the reorganized company. This stock was to be distributed to the members of Federal's management on the basis of the shares of the old preferred stock which they had acquired during the period of reorganization, thereby placing them in the same position as the public holders of the old preferred stock. The intervening members of Federal's management joined in this request. The Commission denied the application in an order issued on February 7, 1945. Holding Company Act Release No. 5584. That order was reversed by the Court of Appeals, 154 F.2d 6, which felt that our prior decision precluded such action by the Commission.

The latest order of the Commission definitely avoids the fatal error of relying on judicial precedents which do not sustain it. This time, after a thorough reexamination of the problem in light of the purposes and standards of the Holding Company Act, the Commission has concluded that the proposed transaction is inconsistent with the standards of §§ 7 and 11 of the Act. It has drawn heavily upon its accumulated experience in dealing with utility reorganizations. And it has expressed its reasons with a clarity and thoroughness that admit of no doubt as to the underlying basis of its order.

The argument is pressed upon us, however, that the Commission was foreclosed from taking such a step following our prior decision. It is said that, in the absence of findings of conscious wrongdoing on the part of Federal's management, the Commission could not determine by an order in this particular case that it was inconsistent with the statutory standards to permit Federal's management to realize a profit through the reorganization purchases. All that it could do was to enter an order allowing an amendment to the plan so that the proposed transaction could be consummated. Under this view, the Commission would be free only to promulgate a general rule outlawing such profits in future utility reorganizations; but such a rule would have to be prospective in nature and have no retroactive effect upon the instant situation.

We reject this contention, for it grows out of a misapprehension of our prior decision and of the Commission's statutory duties. We held no more and no less than that the Commission's first order was unsupportable for the reasons supplied by that agency. But when the case left this Court, the problem whether Federal's management should be treated equally with other preferred stockholders still lacked a final and complete answer. It was clear that the Commission could not give a negative answer by resort to prior judicial declarations. And it was also clear that the Commission was not bound by settled judicial precedents in asituation of this nature. 318 U.S. at page 89, 63 S.Ct. at page 460, 87 L.Ed. 626. Still unsettled, however, was the answer the Commission might give were it to bring to bear on the facts the proper administrative and statutory considerations, a function which belongs exclusively to the Commission in the first instance. The administrative process had taken an erroneous rather than a final turn. Hence we carefully refrained from expressing any views as to the propriety of an order rooted in the proper and relevant considerations. See Siegel v. Federal Trade Commission, 327 U.S. 608, 613, 614, 66 S.Ct. 758, 760, 761, 90 L.Ed. 888.

When the case was directed to be remanded to the Commission for such further proceedings as might be appropriate, it was with the thought that the Commission would give full effect to its duties in harmony with the views we had expressed. Ford Motor Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 305 U.S. 364, 374, 59 S.Ct. 301, 307, 83 L.Ed. 221; Federal Radio Commission v. Nelson Bros. Bond & Mortgage Co., 289 U.S. 266, 278, 53 S.Ct. 627, 633, 77 L.Ed. 1166, 89 A.L.R. 406. This obviously meant something more than the entry of a perfunctory order giving parity treatment to the management...