Securities Law Commons^™

Constitutional Law-Public Utility Holding Company Act--Validity Of Holding Company "Death Sentence" Clause, John A. Huston

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner was the topmost holding company in a public utility holding company system which included eighty subsidiaries and served three million customers in seventeen states. By provision of section 11 (b) (1) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Securities and Exchange Commission was empowered to limit the operations of a holding company registered with it under the act to "a single integrated public utility system." Acting under this authority, the commission ordered petitioner, a registered company, to divest itself of all its subsidiary holdings excepting certain interests regarded by the commission as a single integrated system …