Anti-fraud law upheld by panel

A federal appeals court denied a constitutional challenge to a 2002 anti-fraud law that created a board to oversee the accounting industry after a wave of business scandals.

An attorney for the conservative plaintiffs’ group said it planned to appeal the 2-1 ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, either to the full appeals court or directly to the Supreme Court.

The panel’s ruling rejected the argument by the Free Enterprise Fund that the industry oversight board established by the Sarbanes-Oxley law violates the Constitution’s mandated separation of powers among the three federal branches.