April 1, 2025 • 31 mins
Richard Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School and Founding Director of the Notre Dame Program on Church, State & Society, discusses the Supreme Court oral arguments in which the justices seem likely to side with Catholic Charities in a state tax fight. James Park, a professor at UCLA Law School and an expert in securities law, discusses the Trump administration dropping enforcement actions involving cryptocurrencies. June Grasso hosts.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I thought it was pretty fundamental that we don't treat
some religions better than other religions, and we certainly don't
do it based on the content of the religious doctrine
that those religions preach.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Isn't it a fundamental premise of our First Amendment that
the state shouldn't be picking and choosing between religions, between
certain evangelical sects and Judaism and Catholicism on the other
for example.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Supreme Court justices on both ends of the ideological spectrum
suggested that Wisconsin was discriminating against Catholic Charities by denying
it a religious exemption from the state's unemployment tax program.
The state says that Catholic Charities doesn't qualify for the
tax exemption because the day to day servis as it
(01:00):
provides don't involve religious teachings. Many of the justices seemed
concerned about Wisconsin's contention that one way organizations can get
the exemption is by actively proselytizing. Chief Justice John Roberts
and Justices Amy Cony, Barrett and Neil Gorsich question just
(01:20):
what that means in practice.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
What is the simplest thing that the Catholic Charities would
have to do to qualify for the religious exemption in Wisconsin?
I think, are they sure they have one sign in
the dining hall saying this meal provided by Catholic Charities?
If you want to find out about the church, here's
a brochure.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And I mean, are they playing like hymns on the
radio or like Christian rock at the evangelical soup kitchen
on the radio?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You know, is that proselytization or not?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Because you're forced to sit there and.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Listen to it.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And doesn't it entangle the state tremendously when it has
to go into a soup kitchen. Send an inspector in
to see how much prayer.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Is going on.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
My guest is Richard Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame
Law School and founding director of the school's Program on Church,
State and Society. He was part of a group of
law and religion professors who signed a brief in support
of Catholic Charities in the case. Rick explained the issue
before the justices.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So the justices are being asked to evaluate a ruling
by a Wisconsin court, and that ruling had to do
with an exemption that was in place in Wisconsin law.
It's an exemption from otherwise applicable requirement about providing unemployment insurance.
So Wisconsin, like a lot of states, has a religious exemption.
(02:44):
So some employers were exempt from this particular requirement if
they were religious. And the precise terminology of the exemption
was that organizations that are operated primarily for religious purposes
are entitled to the Exemption's like charities, which is what
it sounds like. A Catholic organization that provides a variety
(03:06):
of social services was denied the exemption on the theory that,
you know, although it's got the word Catholic in it,
and although it's probably motivated by Catholic concerns, that a
lot of the things it was doing they weren't really religious,
they weren't primarily religious. They were the same kinds of
things that secular organizations do. And so that you know,
there was consonant court kind of empsize, Look, they hire
(03:28):
some people who aren't Catholic, they serve people regardless of
their faith. They don't engage in proselytism, they don't require
people to attend church, so they're not really religious, and
the Supreme Court took up the case to decide. I
think whether there was constant. Court's definition of who gets
this exemption was in a way discriminatory, that it distinguished
(03:49):
between religions that engage in kind of overt evangelism when
they provide services and those that live out their religious
mission by riding social services to a broad range of people.
So the Supreme Court took it up on that question,
and from what I can gather, I've read some reports
and I read the transcript of the oral argument, it
(04:10):
seems like most, perhaps even all of the justices were
pretty skeptical of what the Wisconsin Court had done. So
it does seem pretty likely that the Catholic Charities position
is going to win out here.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I think just about everyone who listened to the oral
arguments had the same reaction that the justices would side
with Catholic Charities here. Both liberal Justice Elina Kagan and
conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to be on the same page,
saying that we don't treat some religions better than others.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, so we have a well established principle in American
law that legislatures are permitted to have exemptions for religious
believers or religious institutions from their laws. These happen all
the time, right, but one of the important qualifications is
that legislators aren't allowed to discriminate among religions when they
(05:04):
are granting these exemptions. So you know, you couldn't have
an exemption for Baptist organizations but deny it to Presbyterian ones,
or an exemption for Buddhist ones but deny it to
Hindu ones. You're allowed to have religious exemptions, but the
exemptions themselves can't discriminate among religions. And I think Justice
Kagan's concern was that there Wisconson Court in effect had
(05:26):
said to count as religious, you have to be religious
in a certain way. You have to be religious in
a way that's kind of evangelical, right where you're serving
your own you're engaging in evangelization and proselytism. Maybe you
know you're given out food at the end of a
church service, but you're requiring people to attend church beforehand.
There was Conson Court had a premise that I think
(05:48):
all the justices were uneasy with, namely that it was
appropriate for a secular court to say you know, if
you're not engaging in proselytism, then you're just doing secular stuff.
From the perspective of Catholic charities, you know, when it's
feeding the hungry, or clothing the naked, or housing the unsheltered,
it's still engaging in religious activity. And to be clear,
(06:09):
the Catholic Charity's position is not that any time an
institution claims it's religious, it should get an exemption. Everybody
acknowledges that courts are allowed to ask whether the religious
claims are sincere, and everyone agrees that it is permissible
to distinguish between religious organizations on the one hand and
secular ones on the other. But where the justices got
(06:32):
nervous was the way the wisconstant courts seemed to almost
engage in a little bit of armchair theology when it
decided that in order to be i think the word
to use was typically religious, you had to exercise your
religion in a certain way. And so Justice Kagan, for example, says, well,
you know, look, in Judaism, a lot of what we
do when we're active in the world is not engage
(06:54):
in proselytism. That's not one of the things that we do,
but we still do exercise our religion when we're providing
various social service. So that was clearly a theme that
she was focusing on. And there was also a theme
in the argument not quite as prominent as this discrimination theme,
I think, but it was still there that Wisconsin's rule
had kind of a coercive effect of basically pressuring religious
(07:14):
institutions to organize themselves in a certain way. Because the
Wisconsin rule was one that said, you know, if a
charity is separately incorporated from the church itself, that it's
going to be treated differently than if it's kind of
integrated into the religious institution. And so the concern was
that that regime would kind of pressure religious organizations to
change their structures. But I think the most straightforward part
(07:37):
of the case, and I think this is what the
lawyer for Catholic Charity was really leaning on, is that
it's a straight up black letter rule that governments can't
discriminate among religions when they are crafting their accommodations. And
the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted an interpretation that appears to
treat some religions as being more authentically religious than others.
(07:57):
So I suspect the Supreme Court's going to reverse that.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
What was the best argument you think the state put
forward to defend its claim?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Maybe two things are worth emphasizing.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
That.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
One claim the state made, but I don't think the
justices were moved by it, was that, look, the language
in the Wisconsin statute is a lot like the language
that appears in a whole bunch of other religious exemptions,
and so the concern that the state was raising was like,
if you interpret this language really broadly, that's going to
have all kinds of sweeping effects. And the Justices didn't
seem as moved by that. Another argument the state made,
(08:29):
which is completely reasonable, is that you know, in order
for the state to accommodate religion, it has to have
some limits on that accommodation. Otherwise that reduces the incentive
of the state to accommodate religion at all, which would
be a perverse effect. But I think the justices were
able to respond to that by saying, we agree with you.
There can be limits on the exemptions. Again, you can
make sure that the claimants are sincere, and you can
(08:50):
make sure that they are religious as opposed to secular
or philosophical or what have you. But what you can't
do is adopt the definition of religion, which in effect
picks and chooses among different religions, and I suspect will
get a pretty consensus ruling from the justices on that point.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Justice Barrett raised the question of how far the exemptions
would go, saying, one of the problems here is figuring
out what the line is. Some say there could be
broad ramifications if the Justices side with Catholic Charities here.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I mean, I think she was raising that issue and
was right to, because anytime you have an exemption from
a law, there's going to be questions about how far
the exemption goes. And it is true that in American law,
you know, we don't really have a clear definition of
what is or is not religion. But I think that
the lawyer for Catholic Charities was able to respond just
(09:47):
by assuring Justice Barrett that in this particular case, in
order to correct the error that there wisconstant court made,
you don't actually have to issue a very broad ruling.
You don't have to say again that this religious exemption,
you know, covers any entity that conceivably claims to be religious.
It's a more narrow and I think focused and precise
(10:09):
argument than that. It's that when the state is engaging
in crafting an exemption, it can't do so in a
way that discriminates among religions. So that non discrimination rule,
which is the key to this case, that would prevent
this case from going off into some of the concerns
that the state raised about how you know the exemption
would swallow the rule itself. It is possible to accommodate
(10:31):
religion and to draw boundaries around religion without doing so
in a way that discriminates among different religions. I think
that Justice Kagan and others kind of signal ways to
do that.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
This is the first case involving religion that the Court
has heard in about two years and this term there
are three religion cases. Do you see a trend or
any explanation for why those three in particular?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's hard to say. I mean, so much of the
court stock, as you know, is a function of kind
of accident, you know what happened in the courts below.
But you're right that there's this case which involves a
particular question that arises in the religious accommodation's context, is
one coming out of Maryland, which involves some parents who
wanted to be able to opt their kids out of
some curricular matters that had to do with sexual orientation
(11:16):
and gender identity and so on. So they're seeking an
accommodation that was denied to them. And then of course
there's the Oklahoma case about the virtual Catholic School and
whether it can participate in that state's charter program. That
one's not really an accommodation case. It's more of what
I call a cooperation case. So certainly, you know, an
interesting year for law and religion at the court. But
(11:37):
whether the fact that there are three tells us anything deeper,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Thanks so much, Rick. That's Professor Richard Garnett of Notre
Dame Law School. Coming up next. The Trump administration is
dropping enforcement actions around cryptocurrency. This is bloomberg.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
The federal government is already among the largest holders a bitcoin, as.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
You know, and Trump used to call bitcoin a scam,
but now he wants to make the United States the
bitcoin capital of the world. And last month, at the
first Crypto Summit at the White House, Trump was pushing
the creation of a bitcoin reserve. With most of the
assets seized by forfeitures in law enforcement actions.
Speaker 7 (12:19):
The Treasury and Commerce departments will also explore new pathways
to accumulate additional bitcoin holdings for the reserve, provided it's
done at no cost to the taxpayers.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Of course, the President launched his own Trump Mean coin
just a couple of days before the inauguration, so it
should come as no surprise that the Securities and Exchange
Commission has been dropping Biden administration enforcement actions around cryptocurrency.
Joining me is securities law expert James Park, a professor
(12:50):
at UCLA Law School, Jim to put this into perspective,
tell us sort of what the state of play was
with crypto in enforcement before Trump came into office.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, before the administration changed, the SEC was involved in
vigorous litigation against various parties such as crypto exchanges, developers
of crypto projects, and the issue in many of those
cases was whether or not the crypto asset that had
(13:25):
been sold without registration with the SEC, whether those crypto
assets were securities or not. And there'd been a good
number of decisions, maybe five, maybe ten by federal district
court judges that have uniformly held that in certain circumstances,
crypto assets can be security. There were a few exceptions
(13:50):
with respect to secondary market trading, but even those judges
said that when they're being sold by a developer, the
crypto asset is a security. And so pretty much every
judge that has looked at the issue has said that
some crypto assets are security. Now, these cases have not
really gone up on appeal yet to my knowledge, they've
(14:11):
only been on the district court level, and so appellate
courts have not really weighed in at the time of
the administration changed, but there are a lot of district
court opinions that say that crypto assets can be securities.
And that's that's sort of where we left off.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
So do we know how the Trump administration views crypto assets.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
I think they view crypto assets much more favorably, at
least when we're talking about the folks who may not
be security law expert. But I suspect though that the
security law officials who are going to be manning the
sec even though you know they're Trump appointees and they're Republicans,
(14:53):
I think they have some gpticism about crypto and are
a little bit wary about some of the dangers of
permitted crypto assets to be sold without any disclosure or registration.
But certainly the administration has a very favorable view, a
very lave a fair view, a buyer beware view of
crypto assets.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So Paul Atkins, who has been tapped to run the SEC,
at his public Senate committee hearing, said that providing a
firm regulatory foundation for crypto assets would be a top priority.
He apparently has like six million dollars in crypto himself.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
It's a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
It's a lot. So what does that mean, firm regulatory foundation.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
It's a good question. I think one way of interpreting
this is that, you know, we're going to provide some clarity.
We're going to pass a statute. We're going to pass
comprehensive regulations that define what is regulated and what is not,
and what type of regulation is appropriate. And you know,
(15:56):
I think Democrats and Republicans, I think, are you know,
open into developing reasonable, comprehensive cryptoregulation that protects investors and
helps prevent frauds. And I don't think there's any any
problem with that sort of comprehensive crypto regulation. I think
(16:17):
what the industry wants, though, is more of a safe harbor,
just a set of rules or statutes that permit them
to operate without you know, fear of litigation, without fear
of enforcement, and quite frankly in some cases, without fear
of accountability to investors. And you know, one of the
(16:37):
things the crypto industry has maintained in its litigation is
that it owes no obligations to crypto investors, which I
think is, you know, an extraordinary position to take. And
you know, that is something that they may want to
try to get enshrined in some regulation, but I just
(16:58):
don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
The Trump sec is ending suits against coinbased global binance
holdings and Ripple Labs. I mean, what does that say
or what does that do?
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Well? It means on one level, it's a very powerful
symbolic move to say that, you know, we're not going
to enforce the security laws, even though these exchanges are
probably listing securities, even though some of these developers have
created securities. And by not enforcing the law, we are
(17:33):
sending the message that we don't think that crypto acids
should be regulated as securities. I think that's you know,
that's a powerful symbolic statement that is being made by
withdrawing from these suits, and you know, withdrawing from such
high profile suits that were vigorously litigated by the SEC,
so many of them, is I think unprecedented. I don't really,
(17:55):
you know, recall any other time period when the SEC
has completely dropped so many many major enforcement lawsuits and
just withdrawn. Now. You know, on the other hand, the
district court opinions that were issued in these cases, they
still stand and there's still law, and so those precedents
are not affected by the fact that the SEC has
(18:17):
decided not to pursue these various cases. And so there
still is a foundation of precedent which indicates that crypto
assets can be securities in certain circumstances.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Has the test for whether crypto is a security changed
in any way? Is it still the Howie test?
Speaker 6 (18:37):
It's still the Howie test. It is still the Howie system.
That's what the courts have consistently applied that in some
circumstances crypto assets satisfy the Howie tests because the crypto
asset purchasers are relying upon the efforts of the developers,
the promoters, who are promising to create some great crypto
(18:58):
ecosystem that will cause the value of the crypto assets
to rise, and that's you know, that's what the Howie
test says is as a security, and courts have consistently
said that they can be securities under the Howie test.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Are private plaintiffs able to bring the same kind of
lawsuits that the sec has been bringing?
Speaker 7 (19:22):
They can.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Private plaintiffs who are typically going to be purchasers of
crypto assets who have suffered losses. There are various positive
action that they can assert under federal securities laws that
would permit them to recover some of their lawses. So
one major category of cases is triggered when somebody sells
(19:48):
the security without registering it with the sec than any
private investor who purchased that security has the right to recision,
which basically means they have the right to get their
money back, and that's a valuable remedy. If you've lost
a lot of money, you then have the right to
riskind that transaction and get the money you invested back,
(20:09):
and that would cover your losses. Another major private cause
of action is available when some parties, such as the
developer of the crypto project, the promoter issues material misrepresentation
with fraudulent intent. Then crypto asset purchasers have a cause
of action for security fraud if they argue that we
(20:32):
relied upon these misrepresentations and that caused us to buy
a security that was inflated in price, then they can
recover their losses. So there are very strong, well established,
several private causes of action that investors can can use
if they feel like they have been cheated or defrauded
(20:54):
by the developers of a crypto project.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
What are the disadvantages of litigating these issues through private
lawsuits rather than having the SEC do it?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
You know, having the SEC bring a lawsuit sends a
powerful message. It's a government enforcer that is passed with
acting in the public interest, and when the SEC acts,
that just sends a strong message that you know, this
conduct violates Fedtle securities law and we're enforcing those laws
(21:27):
with private actions. There's often the criticism that these investors they,
you know, they should have known better, they invested in
a risky crypto asset, and they're just suing because they
lost money. And there's a criticism that, well, the plaintiff's
attorneys are you know, they go and look for people
(21:48):
who lost money so that they can bring lawsuits against
various promoters and developers, and the attorneys get a significant fee.
So private litigation sometimes is not looked at as favorably
as sec enforcement actions. But you know, you still have
the same types of remedies that are available. You have
(22:08):
the opportunity to argue that crypto assets are securities, and
so there are you know, very similar benefits that crypto
investors have when they assert these private causes of action.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Have any state ags litigated in this area of crypto.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
They are, They are litigating in a good number of cases,
particularly for you know, cryptoprojects that are really complete frauds,
where you know, somebody is you know, saying, you know,
we're selling this crypto asset that's going to do something.
They just take the money and run. State attorney generals
have been very active in those clear fraud types of cases.
(22:47):
They have been active, and I suspect that they will
become more active as the federal government pulls back. And
there are state securities frauds statutes that can be invoked
and sometimes even criminal state prosecutors are getting involved in
some of the more egregious cases of fast and so
I suspect that the California Attorney General and the New
(23:10):
York Attorney General and attorney generals from across the nation
are going to see this as an opportunity and even
a necessity to protect the citizens of their state from
a fraudulent crypto project.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
this conversation with UCLA law professor James Park. We'll talk
about Trump's pardon of Ross Olbrick, founder of the drug
trafficking site known as Silk Road, where virtual currency was
the coin of the realm. He'd been serving a life
sentence following his twenty fifteen conviction for trafficking and other crimes.
(23:47):
Is a Sam Bankman freed pardon in the future. I'm
June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg, the Securities and
Exchange Commission has been dropping Biden administration enforcement action around cryptocurrency.
Trump's sec ended suits against coinbase, Global, Binance Holdings, Ripple Labs,
(24:09):
but privately filed lawsuits have continued. Private plaintiffs and state
attorneys general can and likely will still pursue claims, perhaps
even more so if the sec backs off enforcement entirely
and bad actors emerge and suits against promoters of other
digital assets such as the Hawk, Tua and Peanut the Squirrel.
(24:32):
Meme coins are ongoing despite a signal that the SEC
won't consider most securities. I've been talking to securities law
expert James Park, a professor at UCLA Law School. Jim,
what about these suits over meme coins.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Meme coins have often been, you know, just brok and
really you can argue that well, investors to know they're
buying something that's not worth anything. But again, I think
that you know, given the amount of money, that the
stake enforcement is really necessary in situations where you know,
millions of dollars of it better funds have been taken
(25:11):
without anything in return.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
So Trump also pardoned ross Aulbrick, the founder of the
drug trafficking site Silk Road, who's been serving a life
sentence since twenty fifteen, so hasn't been in there that
long for a life sentence. What message does that send?
Speaker 6 (25:29):
I think that sends a message. I think about the
use of bitcoin as a way of facilitating illictit activity,
and in some ways that may legitimize just sort of
the idea that we have this cryptocurrency and one of
the main uses of that currency is to facilitate illegal transactions.
(25:53):
And that's where a lot of the value of cryptocurrencies
like bitcoin lies is that, you know, this is the
way of transferring funds that evade the banking system, and
so it facilitates illegal activity. And I think by by
pardoning somebody who you know, used bitcoin and use various
technologies to blatantly violate federal law, that it in some
(26:19):
ways indirectly legitimizes such such activity. But I'm you know,
I'm not completely familiar with all the details of the case.
Maybe the argument is that maybe his feeling was that
the time he served was sufficient for the wrongdoing that
he committed. But you know, given that it was a
life sentence, it does seem like a drastic reduction in
(26:41):
that that sentence.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I wonder if Sam Bankman freed is next I hear
that he's angling for a pardon, that would be a
huge statement.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
It would It would be a huge statement. And I
think the question is, you know, to what extent is
he in his administration really looking careful at the facts
of various cases and you know, trying to say, well,
here are the cases we think are clearly overreaching, and
these are the cases where you get pardons versus we're
(27:13):
just giving everyone a pardon. And you know, in Sam
Bankman freed case, you know, it was not just simply
an issue of you know, making optimistic statements about crypto
that didn't really you know, come to fruition, but misappropriation
of customer funds, which I think everyone would agree is
(27:34):
that a bad thing. And so you know, if you
can trast his case to that of Trevor Milton, who
was pardoned I believe last week. You know, Trevor Milton
was the founder of the Nicola company that was developing
technology for clean energy trucks, and the theory against him
(27:55):
is that on social media and other platforms he made
very very optimistic, some would say misleading statements about that
technology and pump them the stock price by those tactics.
And you know, he was steadily convicted, sadly of a
security fraud. And so you know, in that case, you know,
(28:17):
perhaps the ideas that well, you know, maybe he violated
some law, but maybe it's not, you know, it's not
a criminal violation. Maybe it should just have been a
civil violation. There's some argument that the parting could have
been motivated by the the feeling that, you know, entrepreneurs
should be able to, you know, issue optimistic statements about
(28:40):
their products and not fear going to prison. So so
I think you could distinguish that case from Fan Bateman seed,
where you know, you're misappropriating customer funds, which is something
that's you know, arguably different and probably different than making
very optimistic statements about your your technology that could be
misleading and could mislead investors.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to make the US
the crypto capital of the world. Then the executive order
part of it would be to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
What is that?
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I think there are a lot of interpretations of what
that means. And you know, one interpretation is that, you know,
we have bitcoin that is owned by the federal government
that maybe it sees from criminals or if it comes
to the federal government, and so, you know, rather than
selling that bitcoin, we just keep it. It's just something
that is owned by the federal government, and that could
(29:37):
be seen as the reserve.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
You know.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Another more radical way of creating a reserve is that
the federal government would actively buy bitcoin and hold it
as an investment or hold it as some something of value.
You know, I think that would be a much more
radical step, and you know, a sort of intermediate version
of this, where you have a sovereign wealth fund would
(30:00):
invest in bitcoin and support its price, which is something
that the solving wealth fund, I know, has been floated.
So it's unclear, and I think, you know, some of
this I think is politics. Of course, there were there
significant campaign contributions by the crypto industry and support of
the Trump campaign, and you know, he's paying them back
in a sense. This is something that you know. The
(30:21):
other kind of problem here, I think is that you
know the problem of the influence of money on politics,
and at least initially, crypto has generated significant amounts of wealth,
and that wealth has been deployed to influence the political system.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
We'll see if litigation by investors and attorneys general can
fill in some of the gaps from the lack of
SEC enforcement. Thanks so much, Jim Best, Professor James Park
of UCLA Law School, And that's it for this edition
of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get
the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You
(30:59):
can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www
Dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, and remember
to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at
ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're
listening to Bloomberg
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I thought it was pretty fundamental that we don't treat
some religions better than other religions, and we certainly don't
do it based on the content of the religious doctrine
that those religions preach.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Isn't it a fundamental premise of our First Amendment that
the state shouldn't be picking and choosing between religions, between
certain evangelical sects and Judaism and Catholicism on the other
for example.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Supreme Court justices on both ends of the ideological spectrum
suggested that Wisconsin was discriminating against Catholic Charities by denying
it a religious exemption from the state's unemployment tax program.
The state says that Catholic Charities doesn't qualify for the
tax exemption because the day to day servis as it
(01:00):
provides don't involve religious teachings. Many of the justices seemed
concerned about Wisconsin's contention that one way organizations can get
the exemption is by actively proselytizing. Chief Justice John Roberts
and Justices Amy Cony, Barrett and Neil Gorsich question just
(01:20):
what that means in practice.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
What is the simplest thing that the Catholic Charities would
have to do to qualify for the religious exemption in Wisconsin?
I think, are they sure they have one sign in
the dining hall saying this meal provided by Catholic Charities?
If you want to find out about the church, here's
a brochure.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And I mean, are they playing like hymns on the
radio or like Christian rock at the evangelical soup kitchen
on the radio?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You know, is that proselytization or not?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Because you're forced to sit there and.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Listen to it.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
And doesn't it entangle the state tremendously when it has
to go into a soup kitchen. Send an inspector in
to see how much prayer.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Is going on.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
My guest is Richard Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame
Law School and founding director of the school's Program on Church,
State and Society. He was part of a group of
law and religion professors who signed a brief in support
of Catholic Charities in the case. Rick explained the issue
before the justices.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So the justices are being asked to evaluate a ruling
by a Wisconsin court, and that ruling had to do
with an exemption that was in place in Wisconsin law.
It's an exemption from otherwise applicable requirement about providing unemployment insurance.
So Wisconsin, like a lot of states, has a religious exemption.
(02:44):
So some employers were exempt from this particular requirement if
they were religious. And the precise terminology of the exemption
was that organizations that are operated primarily for religious purposes
are entitled to the Exemption's like charities, which is what
it sounds like. A Catholic organization that provides a variety
(03:06):
of social services was denied the exemption on the theory that,
you know, although it's got the word Catholic in it,
and although it's probably motivated by Catholic concerns, that a
lot of the things it was doing they weren't really religious,
they weren't primarily religious. They were the same kinds of
things that secular organizations do. And so that you know,
there was consonant court kind of empsize, Look, they hire
(03:28):
some people who aren't Catholic, they serve people regardless of
their faith. They don't engage in proselytism, they don't require
people to attend church, so they're not really religious, and
the Supreme Court took up the case to decide. I
think whether there was constant. Court's definition of who gets
this exemption was in a way discriminatory, that it distinguished
(03:49):
between religions that engage in kind of overt evangelism when
they provide services and those that live out their religious
mission by riding social services to a broad range of people.
So the Supreme Court took it up on that question,
and from what I can gather, I've read some reports
and I read the transcript of the oral argument, it
(04:10):
seems like most, perhaps even all of the justices were
pretty skeptical of what the Wisconsin Court had done. So
it does seem pretty likely that the Catholic Charities position
is going to win out here.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I think just about everyone who listened to the oral
arguments had the same reaction that the justices would side
with Catholic Charities here. Both liberal Justice Elina Kagan and
conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to be on the same page,
saying that we don't treat some religions better than others.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, so we have a well established principle in American
law that legislatures are permitted to have exemptions for religious
believers or religious institutions from their laws. These happen all
the time, right, but one of the important qualifications is
that legislators aren't allowed to discriminate among religions when they
(05:04):
are granting these exemptions. So you know, you couldn't have
an exemption for Baptist organizations but deny it to Presbyterian ones,
or an exemption for Buddhist ones but deny it to
Hindu ones. You're allowed to have religious exemptions, but the
exemptions themselves can't discriminate among religions. And I think Justice
Kagan's concern was that there Wisconson Court in effect had
(05:26):
said to count as religious, you have to be religious
in a certain way. You have to be religious in
a way that's kind of evangelical, right where you're serving
your own you're engaging in evangelization and proselytism. Maybe you
know you're given out food at the end of a
church service, but you're requiring people to attend church beforehand.
There was Conson Court had a premise that I think
(05:48):
all the justices were uneasy with, namely that it was
appropriate for a secular court to say you know, if
you're not engaging in proselytism, then you're just doing secular stuff.
From the perspective of Catholic charities, you know, when it's
feeding the hungry, or clothing the naked, or housing the unsheltered,
it's still engaging in religious activity. And to be clear,
(06:09):
the Catholic Charity's position is not that any time an
institution claims it's religious, it should get an exemption. Everybody
acknowledges that courts are allowed to ask whether the religious
claims are sincere, and everyone agrees that it is permissible
to distinguish between religious organizations on the one hand and
secular ones on the other. But where the justices got
(06:32):
nervous was the way the wisconstant courts seemed to almost
engage in a little bit of armchair theology when it
decided that in order to be i think the word
to use was typically religious, you had to exercise your
religion in a certain way. And so Justice Kagan, for example, says, well,
you know, look, in Judaism, a lot of what we
do when we're active in the world is not engage
(06:54):
in proselytism. That's not one of the things that we do,
but we still do exercise our religion when we're providing
various social service. So that was clearly a theme that
she was focusing on. And there was also a theme
in the argument not quite as prominent as this discrimination theme,
I think, but it was still there that Wisconsin's rule
had kind of a coercive effect of basically pressuring religious
(07:14):
institutions to organize themselves in a certain way. Because the
Wisconsin rule was one that said, you know, if a
charity is separately incorporated from the church itself, that it's
going to be treated differently than if it's kind of
integrated into the religious institution. And so the concern was
that that regime would kind of pressure religious organizations to
change their structures. But I think the most straightforward part
(07:37):
of the case, and I think this is what the
lawyer for Catholic Charity was really leaning on, is that
it's a straight up black letter rule that governments can't
discriminate among religions when they are crafting their accommodations. And
the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted an interpretation that appears to
treat some religions as being more authentically religious than others.
(07:57):
So I suspect the Supreme Court's going to reverse that.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
What was the best argument you think the state put
forward to defend its claim?
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Maybe two things are worth emphasizing.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
That.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
One claim the state made, but I don't think the
justices were moved by it, was that, look, the language
in the Wisconsin statute is a lot like the language
that appears in a whole bunch of other religious exemptions,
and so the concern that the state was raising was like,
if you interpret this language really broadly, that's going to
have all kinds of sweeping effects. And the Justices didn't
seem as moved by that. Another argument the state made,
(08:29):
which is completely reasonable, is that you know, in order
for the state to accommodate religion, it has to have
some limits on that accommodation. Otherwise that reduces the incentive
of the state to accommodate religion at all, which would
be a perverse effect. But I think the justices were
able to respond to that by saying, we agree with you.
There can be limits on the exemptions. Again, you can
make sure that the claimants are sincere, and you can
(08:50):
make sure that they are religious as opposed to secular
or philosophical or what have you. But what you can't
do is adopt the definition of religion, which in effect
picks and chooses among different religions, and I suspect will
get a pretty consensus ruling from the justices on that point.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Justice Barrett raised the question of how far the exemptions
would go, saying, one of the problems here is figuring
out what the line is. Some say there could be
broad ramifications if the Justices side with Catholic Charities here.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I mean, I think she was raising that issue and
was right to, because anytime you have an exemption from
a law, there's going to be questions about how far
the exemption goes. And it is true that in American law,
you know, we don't really have a clear definition of
what is or is not religion. But I think that
the lawyer for Catholic Charities was able to respond just
(09:47):
by assuring Justice Barrett that in this particular case, in
order to correct the error that there wisconstant court made,
you don't actually have to issue a very broad ruling.
You don't have to say again that this religious exemption,
you know, covers any entity that conceivably claims to be religious.
It's a more narrow and I think focused and precise
(10:09):
argument than that. It's that when the state is engaging
in crafting an exemption, it can't do so in a
way that discriminates among religions. So that non discrimination rule,
which is the key to this case, that would prevent
this case from going off into some of the concerns
that the state raised about how you know the exemption
would swallow the rule itself. It is possible to accommodate
(10:31):
religion and to draw boundaries around religion without doing so
in a way that discriminates among different religions. I think
that Justice Kagan and others kind of signal ways to
do that.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
This is the first case involving religion that the Court
has heard in about two years and this term there
are three religion cases. Do you see a trend or
any explanation for why those three in particular?
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's hard to say. I mean, so much of the
court stock, as you know, is a function of kind
of accident, you know what happened in the courts below.
But you're right that there's this case which involves a
particular question that arises in the religious accommodation's context, is
one coming out of Maryland, which involves some parents who
wanted to be able to opt their kids out of
some curricular matters that had to do with sexual orientation
(11:16):
and gender identity and so on. So they're seeking an
accommodation that was denied to them. And then of course
there's the Oklahoma case about the virtual Catholic School and
whether it can participate in that state's charter program. That
one's not really an accommodation case. It's more of what
I call a cooperation case. So certainly, you know, an
interesting year for law and religion at the court. But
(11:37):
whether the fact that there are three tells us anything deeper,
I'm not sure.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Thanks so much, Rick. That's Professor Richard Garnett of Notre
Dame Law School. Coming up next. The Trump administration is
dropping enforcement actions around cryptocurrency. This is bloomberg.
Speaker 7 (11:55):
The federal government is already among the largest holders a bitcoin, as.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
You know, and Trump used to call bitcoin a scam,
but now he wants to make the United States the
bitcoin capital of the world. And last month, at the
first Crypto Summit at the White House, Trump was pushing
the creation of a bitcoin reserve. With most of the
assets seized by forfeitures in law enforcement actions.
Speaker 7 (12:19):
The Treasury and Commerce departments will also explore new pathways
to accumulate additional bitcoin holdings for the reserve, provided it's
done at no cost to the taxpayers.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Of course, the President launched his own Trump Mean coin
just a couple of days before the inauguration, so it
should come as no surprise that the Securities and Exchange
Commission has been dropping Biden administration enforcement actions around cryptocurrency.
Joining me is securities law expert James Park, a professor
(12:50):
at UCLA Law School, Jim to put this into perspective,
tell us sort of what the state of play was
with crypto in enforcement before Trump came into office.
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Yeah, before the administration changed, the SEC was involved in
vigorous litigation against various parties such as crypto exchanges, developers
of crypto projects, and the issue in many of those
cases was whether or not the crypto asset that had
(13:25):
been sold without registration with the SEC, whether those crypto
assets were securities or not. And there'd been a good
number of decisions, maybe five, maybe ten by federal district
court judges that have uniformly held that in certain circumstances,
crypto assets can be security. There were a few exceptions
(13:50):
with respect to secondary market trading, but even those judges
said that when they're being sold by a developer, the
crypto asset is a security. And so pretty much every
judge that has looked at the issue has said that
some crypto assets are security. Now, these cases have not
really gone up on appeal yet to my knowledge, they've
(14:11):
only been on the district court level, and so appellate
courts have not really weighed in at the time of
the administration changed, but there are a lot of district
court opinions that say that crypto assets can be securities.
And that's that's sort of where we left off.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
So do we know how the Trump administration views crypto assets.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
I think they view crypto assets much more favorably, at
least when we're talking about the folks who may not
be security law expert. But I suspect though that the
security law officials who are going to be manning the
sec even though you know they're Trump appointees and they're Republicans,
(14:53):
I think they have some gpticism about crypto and are
a little bit wary about some of the dangers of
permitted crypto assets to be sold without any disclosure or registration.
But certainly the administration has a very favorable view, a
very lave a fair view, a buyer beware view of
crypto assets.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
So Paul Atkins, who has been tapped to run the SEC,
at his public Senate committee hearing, said that providing a
firm regulatory foundation for crypto assets would be a top priority.
He apparently has like six million dollars in crypto himself.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
It's a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
It's a lot. So what does that mean, firm regulatory foundation.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
It's a good question. I think one way of interpreting
this is that, you know, we're going to provide some clarity.
We're going to pass a statute. We're going to pass
comprehensive regulations that define what is regulated and what is not,
and what type of regulation is appropriate. And you know,
(15:56):
I think Democrats and Republicans, I think, are you know,
open into developing reasonable, comprehensive cryptoregulation that protects investors and
helps prevent frauds. And I don't think there's any any
problem with that sort of comprehensive crypto regulation. I think
(16:17):
what the industry wants, though, is more of a safe harbor,
just a set of rules or statutes that permit them
to operate without you know, fear of litigation, without fear
of enforcement, and quite frankly in some cases, without fear
of accountability to investors. And you know, one of the
(16:37):
things the crypto industry has maintained in its litigation is
that it owes no obligations to crypto investors, which I
think is, you know, an extraordinary position to take. And
you know, that is something that they may want to
try to get enshrined in some regulation, but I just
(16:58):
don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
The Trump sec is ending suits against coinbased global binance
holdings and Ripple Labs. I mean, what does that say
or what does that do?
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Well? It means on one level, it's a very powerful
symbolic move to say that, you know, we're not going
to enforce the security laws, even though these exchanges are
probably listing securities, even though some of these developers have
created securities. And by not enforcing the law, we are
(17:33):
sending the message that we don't think that crypto acids
should be regulated as securities. I think that's you know,
that's a powerful symbolic statement that is being made by
withdrawing from these suits, and you know, withdrawing from such
high profile suits that were vigorously litigated by the SEC,
so many of them, is I think unprecedented. I don't really,
(17:55):
you know, recall any other time period when the SEC
has completely dropped so many many major enforcement lawsuits and
just withdrawn. Now. You know, on the other hand, the
district court opinions that were issued in these cases, they
still stand and there's still law, and so those precedents
are not affected by the fact that the SEC has
(18:17):
decided not to pursue these various cases. And so there
still is a foundation of precedent which indicates that crypto
assets can be securities in certain circumstances.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Has the test for whether crypto is a security changed
in any way? Is it still the Howie test?
Speaker 6 (18:37):
It's still the Howie test. It is still the Howie system.
That's what the courts have consistently applied that in some
circumstances crypto assets satisfy the Howie tests because the crypto
asset purchasers are relying upon the efforts of the developers,
the promoters, who are promising to create some great crypto
(18:58):
ecosystem that will cause the value of the crypto assets
to rise, and that's you know, that's what the Howie
test says is as a security, and courts have consistently
said that they can be securities under the Howie test.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Are private plaintiffs able to bring the same kind of
lawsuits that the sec has been bringing?
Speaker 7 (19:22):
They can.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
Private plaintiffs who are typically going to be purchasers of
crypto assets who have suffered losses. There are various positive
action that they can assert under federal securities laws that
would permit them to recover some of their lawses. So
one major category of cases is triggered when somebody sells
(19:48):
the security without registering it with the sec than any
private investor who purchased that security has the right to recision,
which basically means they have the right to get their
money back, and that's a valuable remedy. If you've lost
a lot of money, you then have the right to
riskind that transaction and get the money you invested back,
(20:09):
and that would cover your losses. Another major private cause
of action is available when some parties, such as the
developer of the crypto project, the promoter issues material misrepresentation
with fraudulent intent. Then crypto asset purchasers have a cause
of action for security fraud if they argue that we
(20:32):
relied upon these misrepresentations and that caused us to buy
a security that was inflated in price, then they can
recover their losses. So there are very strong, well established,
several private causes of action that investors can can use
if they feel like they have been cheated or defrauded
(20:54):
by the developers of a crypto project.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
What are the disadvantages of litigating these issues through private
lawsuits rather than having the SEC do it?
Speaker 6 (21:06):
You know, having the SEC bring a lawsuit sends a
powerful message. It's a government enforcer that is passed with
acting in the public interest, and when the SEC acts,
that just sends a strong message that you know, this
conduct violates Fedtle securities law and we're enforcing those laws
(21:27):
with private actions. There's often the criticism that these investors they,
you know, they should have known better, they invested in
a risky crypto asset, and they're just suing because they
lost money. And there's a criticism that, well, the plaintiff's
attorneys are you know, they go and look for people
(21:48):
who lost money so that they can bring lawsuits against
various promoters and developers, and the attorneys get a significant fee.
So private litigation sometimes is not looked at as favorably
as sec enforcement actions. But you know, you still have
the same types of remedies that are available. You have
(22:08):
the opportunity to argue that crypto assets are securities, and
so there are you know, very similar benefits that crypto
investors have when they assert these private causes of action.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Have any state ags litigated in this area of crypto.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
They are, They are litigating in a good number of cases,
particularly for you know, cryptoprojects that are really complete frauds,
where you know, somebody is you know, saying, you know,
we're selling this crypto asset that's going to do something.
They just take the money and run. State attorney generals
have been very active in those clear fraud types of cases.
(22:47):
They have been active, and I suspect that they will
become more active as the federal government pulls back. And
there are state securities frauds statutes that can be invoked
and sometimes even criminal state prosecutors are getting involved in
some of the more egregious cases of fast and so
I suspect that the California Attorney General and the New
(23:10):
York Attorney General and attorney generals from across the nation
are going to see this as an opportunity and even
a necessity to protect the citizens of their state from
a fraudulent crypto project.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue
this conversation with UCLA law professor James Park. We'll talk
about Trump's pardon of Ross Olbrick, founder of the drug
trafficking site known as Silk Road, where virtual currency was
the coin of the realm. He'd been serving a life
sentence following his twenty fifteen conviction for trafficking and other crimes.
(23:47):
Is a Sam Bankman freed pardon in the future. I'm
June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg, the Securities and
Exchange Commission has been dropping Biden administration enforcement action around cryptocurrency.
Trump's sec ended suits against coinbase, Global, Binance Holdings, Ripple Labs,
(24:09):
but privately filed lawsuits have continued. Private plaintiffs and state
attorneys general can and likely will still pursue claims, perhaps
even more so if the sec backs off enforcement entirely
and bad actors emerge and suits against promoters of other
digital assets such as the Hawk, Tua and Peanut the Squirrel.
(24:32):
Meme coins are ongoing despite a signal that the SEC
won't consider most securities. I've been talking to securities law
expert James Park, a professor at UCLA Law School. Jim,
what about these suits over meme coins.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
Meme coins have often been, you know, just brok and
really you can argue that well, investors to know they're
buying something that's not worth anything. But again, I think
that you know, given the amount of money, that the
stake enforcement is really necessary in situations where you know,
millions of dollars of it better funds have been taken
(25:11):
without anything in return.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
So Trump also pardoned ross Aulbrick, the founder of the
drug trafficking site Silk Road, who's been serving a life
sentence since twenty fifteen, so hasn't been in there that
long for a life sentence. What message does that send?
Speaker 6 (25:29):
I think that sends a message. I think about the
use of bitcoin as a way of facilitating illictit activity,
and in some ways that may legitimize just sort of
the idea that we have this cryptocurrency and one of
the main uses of that currency is to facilitate illegal transactions.
(25:53):
And that's where a lot of the value of cryptocurrencies
like bitcoin lies is that, you know, this is the
way of transferring funds that evade the banking system, and
so it facilitates illegal activity. And I think by by
pardoning somebody who you know, used bitcoin and use various
technologies to blatantly violate federal law, that it in some
(26:19):
ways indirectly legitimizes such such activity. But I'm you know,
I'm not completely familiar with all the details of the case.
Maybe the argument is that maybe his feeling was that
the time he served was sufficient for the wrongdoing that
he committed. But you know, given that it was a
life sentence, it does seem like a drastic reduction in
(26:41):
that that sentence.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
I wonder if Sam Bankman freed is next I hear
that he's angling for a pardon, that would be a
huge statement.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
It would It would be a huge statement. And I
think the question is, you know, to what extent is
he in his administration really looking careful at the facts
of various cases and you know, trying to say, well,
here are the cases we think are clearly overreaching, and
these are the cases where you get pardons versus we're
(27:13):
just giving everyone a pardon. And you know, in Sam
Bankman freed case, you know, it was not just simply
an issue of you know, making optimistic statements about crypto
that didn't really you know, come to fruition, but misappropriation
of customer funds, which I think everyone would agree is
(27:34):
that a bad thing. And so you know, if you
can trast his case to that of Trevor Milton, who
was pardoned I believe last week. You know, Trevor Milton
was the founder of the Nicola company that was developing
technology for clean energy trucks, and the theory against him
(27:55):
is that on social media and other platforms he made
very very optimistic, some would say misleading statements about that
technology and pump them the stock price by those tactics.
And you know, he was steadily convicted, sadly of a
security fraud. And so you know, in that case, you know,
(28:17):
perhaps the ideas that well, you know, maybe he violated
some law, but maybe it's not, you know, it's not
a criminal violation. Maybe it should just have been a
civil violation. There's some argument that the parting could have
been motivated by the the feeling that, you know, entrepreneurs
should be able to, you know, issue optimistic statements about
(28:40):
their products and not fear going to prison. So so
I think you could distinguish that case from Fan Bateman seed,
where you know, you're misappropriating customer funds, which is something
that's you know, arguably different and probably different than making
very optimistic statements about your your technology that could be
misleading and could mislead investors.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to make the US
the crypto capital of the world. Then the executive order
part of it would be to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
What is that?
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I think there are a lot of interpretations of what
that means. And you know, one interpretation is that, you know,
we have bitcoin that is owned by the federal government
that maybe it sees from criminals or if it comes
to the federal government, and so, you know, rather than
selling that bitcoin, we just keep it. It's just something
that is owned by the federal government, and that could
(29:37):
be seen as the reserve.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
You know.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
Another more radical way of creating a reserve is that
the federal government would actively buy bitcoin and hold it
as an investment or hold it as some something of value.
You know, I think that would be a much more
radical step, and you know, a sort of intermediate version
of this, where you have a sovereign wealth fund would
(30:00):
invest in bitcoin and support its price, which is something
that the solving wealth fund, I know, has been floated.
So it's unclear, and I think, you know, some of
this I think is politics. Of course, there were there
significant campaign contributions by the crypto industry and support of
the Trump campaign, and you know, he's paying them back
in a sense. This is something that you know. The
(30:21):
other kind of problem here, I think is that you
know the problem of the influence of money on politics,
and at least initially, crypto has generated significant amounts of wealth,
and that wealth has been deployed to influence the political system.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
We'll see if litigation by investors and attorneys general can
fill in some of the gaps from the lack of
SEC enforcement. Thanks so much, Jim Best, Professor James Park
of UCLA Law School, And that's it for this edition
of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get
the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You
(30:59):
can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www
Dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, and remember
to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at
ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're
listening to Bloomberg
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