It's understandable if you lost track of this subject just a bit, since only the most dedicated securities attorneys and governance aficionados have followed it very closely. Fortunately, we have some relevant updates, for the rest of us.

When we last left this story way back in October of 2010, business interests had filed a lawsuit challenging the SEC's authority to issue regulations on proxy access. Since then, the petitioners (The Business Roundtable and the US Chamber of Commerce) filed their brief in late November, and the respondents (the SEC) filed theirs last week.

Both pleadings are pretty dense with administrative law. The petitioners argue, in essence, that the SEC failed to follow proper rulemaking procedure, including neglecting to consider all costs to business of implementing proxy access.

Want a clear, detailed, and insightful analysis of the arguments? You can't do better than law professor Jay Brown's series of blog posts at The Race to the Bottom. He mostly demolishes the petitioner case against the SEC: "The focus on rulemaking was always a thin reed."

Oral argument is currently scheduled for Thursday, April 7. The parties have hurled considerable invective, at least as it goes within administrative law proceedings:

• Petitioners accuse the SEC of "willful ignorance"
• Petitioners also claim "self-contradiction, uncertainty, and sheer guesswork...pervade[s]" the regulations
• And, the regulations are "the product of an agency that does not know what it has wrought"
• In turn, the SEC labels the petitioners' brief as "overheated rhetoric".

It should make for an interesting day in court.