The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Monday upheld the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of lifetime gag orders in civil enforcement actions, rejecting claims by a former Xerox executive that they were an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech.

A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based appeals court sided with the federal agency in ruling that the ex-executive, Barry Romeril, had waived his right to publicly deny the SEC’s allegations when he entered a 2003 consent decree to resolve claims that he and other Xerox officers had inflated the company’s pretax earnings by nearly $1.4 billion.