The Securities and Exchange Commission botched its responsibility to consider the cost and potential abuse of new rules aimed at improving shareholders’ access to corporate ballots, the Chamber of Commerce said in a legal filing.

The chamber and the Business Roundtable, a group of US chief executives, sued the SEC in September, seeking to reverse rules adopted by the commission in August.

It failed to “realistically appraise the frequency and cost of access election campaigns” and “displayed willful ignorance,” the brief filed yesterday in the US Court of Appeals inWashington said.