Lawyers for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board have until mid-October to answer an appeal to a court decision earlier this year that killed a constitutional challenge to the board’s existence.

Christian G. Vergonis, an attorney with Jones Day, said there’s no set date for a decision on whether the U.S. Court Of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear the case, but the court has asked the PCAOB to file a brief by mid-October. Vergonis is an attorney for the Free Enterprise Fund, which argued unsuccessfully in the U.S. District Court that the existence of the PCAOB is unconstitutional.

Free Enterprise Fund, along with Nevada-based accounting firm Beckstead and Watts, said the PCAOB, is unconstitutional based on the manner in which board members are selected by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The PCAOB was established in 2002 in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley to clean up corporate accounting and auditing,

The case is important enough to appeal, said Vergonis, because “the panel majority’s opinion has given Congress a green light to create a new form of regulatory agency that, like the PCAOB, is completely insulated from presidential control or influence.” The finding is “flatly inconsistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents regarding separation of powers,” said Vergonis.