As a legal challenge continues in a lower court, the Supreme Court agreed Thursday to reinstate a federal anti-money laundering law at the federal government’s request.

A federal judge’s injunction that blocked the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which would have required millions of business entities to reveal personal information about their owners, is temporarily halted by the court’s emergency stay.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, a justice, dissented.

Three days after President Trump’s inauguration, the high court issued its decision in response to a request for intervention from the Biden-era Justice Department late last month. Although Trump had opposed the new law during his first term as president, his Justice Department did not withdraw the application.

The CTA, which was passed in early 2021 as part of the annual defense bill, would mandate that millions of small business owners provide the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network with personal data, such as addresses and dates of birth, in order to fight money laundering and other crimes.

In an attempt to delay the approaching deadline, business and anti-regulatory interests have given the dispute a lot of attention.

Going forward, the case will be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will consider whether the Justice Department’s defense of the law is a legitimate use of Congress’s constitutional power over interstate commerce. The disclosure requirement was supposed to take effect this month, but the justices’ order opens the door for officials to carry it out in the interim.

The only justice to openly dissent was Jackson, the court’s only appointee under former President Biden, who claimed the government had not demonstrated “sufficient exigency” and that the 5th Circuit was expeditiously hearing the government’s appeal.

“Despite the fact that the harms it now claims warrant our involvement were likely to occur during that period, the Government deferred implementation on its own accord—setting an enforcement date of nearly four years after Congress enacted the law,” Jackson wrote.

“If the Act’s implementation is further postponed while the litigation continues in the lower courts, the Government has not indicated that harm of a more serious or significant nature would ensue.” As a result, I would reject the application and let the appeals process finish,” she added.

The Justice Department argued that postponing the deadline would result in irreversible damage.

Former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the government’s Supreme Court application that “it prevents the government from executing a duly enacted Act of Congress, impedes efforts to prevent financial crime and protect national security, undermines the United States’ ability to press other countries to improve their own anti-money laundering regimes, and severely disrupts the ongoing implementation of the Act.”

A different proposal from Prelogar to move the case to the justices’ regular docket so they could consider the power of federal district judges to block laws across the country was rejected by the Supreme Court.

Taking up the issue would have had significant ramifications for legal challenges to subsequent administrations, as “universal injunctions” have become a prevalent trend to undermine laws and regulations put in place by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

Trump’s first appointee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has expressed reservations about such injunctions in the past, stated that he would have given the matter some thought.

“I concur with the Court that the government is entitled to a stay of the universal injunction issued by the district court. In a succinct written concurrence, Gorsuch stated, “I would, however, go a step further and, as the government suggests, take this case now to definitively resolve the question whether a district court may issue universal injunctive relief.”

The case started when the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a dairy farm, an information technology company, one of its owners, a firearms dealer, and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi contested the Corporate Transparency Act, arguing that it went beyond what Congress could do.

Following a string of rash decisions at the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit, which ultimately upheld a federal district judge’s decision prohibiting the new law until the government’s complete appeal was settled, the government made its emergency request.

The plaintiffs highlighted the political context of Trump’s inauguration in their Supreme Court filings. The only time Congress overrode a Trump veto was during his last days in office, when he vetoed the defense bill that included the new corporate disclosure requirement.

The possibility that the incoming administration will postpone the deadline, which would only be possible if it hasn’t already passed, is a more plausible explanation for its increased urgency. Consequently, the charge to enforce the mandate,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.

“The bell cannot be unrung once existing companies have been compelled to reveal their beneficial owners.”

Business organizations such as the National Small Business Association, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, and the National Retail Federation also vigorously opposed the Biden administration’s emergency application from the outside.

Similar opposition was raised by Advancing American Freedom, a conservative political advocacy organization started by former Vice President Mike Pence, and more than a dozen Republican members of Congress.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, 25 Republican state attorneys general stated, “Be clear: this stay application is an aggressive play for vast power over American small businesses (and others).”