Digital Commons Network^™

Investing In Distressed Italian Companies Under The Reformed Italian Bankruptcy Law - A Comparison With The Us Bankruptcy Code, Pierantonio Musso

Pierantonio Musso

This article presents a scheme to profitably invest in distressed Italian companies by taking advantage of the Italian Bankruptcy Law in comparison with the US Bankruptcy Code. The risks connected to the insolvency proceeding are analyzed under their economic effects and foreseen in their general appearance. Specific remedies to avoid or mitigate the potential risks are provided. Singular advantages, available only in the proposed investment scheme under the Italian Law, are described. As a result the investment produces a less risky and more profitable outcome than an investment in a non-distressed and non-Italian target company.

Damages To Business Interests, R. Steven Thing

R. Steven Thing

No abstract provided.

Contract + Tort = Property: The Trade Secret Illustration, Matthew E. Cavanaugh Mba Cpa Esq.

Matthew E. Cavanaugh MBA CPA Esq.

This article commences with an introduction to the use of Hegel’s famous dialectical method as an arithmetic analysis of law. It reviews Hegel’s assertion that the sum of property and contract is tort and crime, and then suggests a better dialectic is that contract plus tort equals property. This article then reviews the doctrines of contract, tort, and property, focusing on the plaintiff’s rights and remedies, and who can be defendants in each of the three doctrines. The article next reviews the law of one particular type of intellectual property, trade secrets, because this article uses trade secrets as a …

Development Lending To Municipalities By The World Bank Group, Asheesh Bhalla

Asheesh Bhalla

The World Bank Group has recently shifted its development lending policies to have a greater focus on lending to municipalities and developing financial institutions and systems of market creation at the local level. The author reviews this policy shift, and the consequences of such policy changes on local government institutions and law.

The Hierarchy That Wasn't There: Elevating ‘Usage’ To Its Rightful Position For Contracts Governed By The Cisg, William P. Johnson

William P. Johnson

The term ‘usage’ generally refers to any practice that is habitual or customary within a given industry, trade or region. Under domestic U.S. sales law, the term ‘usage of trade’ is defined specifically to refer to any practice or method of dealing that has such regularity of observance as to justify an expectation that parties to a particular contract will observe the usage, even though the parties have not expressly incorporated the usage into their contract. Usage of trade can be used under domestic U.S. sales law to interpret, supplement or explain a written agreement. But usage of trade may …

Is Privity Dead? Should It Be?, David F. Tavella

David F. Tavella

Privity, a concept that is over 150 years old, may have worked well in the 19th Century, seems outdated in a time national accounting firms and law firms. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries, when a person may have gone to an agent, accountant, or other service provider for advice, there was no thought that the advice would be distributed to potentially millions of people with the possibility of billions of dollars in losses for negligent performance. Today, this is common in the accounting and insurance industries. The question is whether a concept, even one firmly rooted in American …

Serious Flaw Of Employee Invention Ownership Under The Bayh-Dole Act In Stanford V. Roche: Finding The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle In The German Employee Invention Act, Toshiko Takenaka Prof.

Toshiko Takenaka Prof.

In Stanford v. Roche, the Supreme Court highlighted a serious flaw of employee invention ownership under the Bayh-Dole Act (BDA). This article argues that the current BDA is incomplete without a mechanism for contractors to secure the ownership of all federally funded inventions and proposes a revision to introduce such a mechanism from the German Employee Invention Act (EIA). Because the EIA influenced the drafting of the BDA, the EIA and BDA share key features, which make it easy for the BDA to adopt an ownership transfer mechanism from the EIA. This article also proposes to adopt a mechanism to …

Judicial Intervention As Risk Reduction, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Juliet P Kostritsky

JUDICIAL INTERVENTION AS RISK REDUCTION J. P. Kostritsky Employing an economics-based consequentialist approach to contract interpretation (focusing on the prospective effect and the factors that might justify intervention) this Article attempts to identify the precise parameters of an optimal framework for contract interpretation. Such a framework would seek to maximize gains from trade. The issue in such cases is always, given the words the parties used, what is the best (surplus maximizing) interpretation of the bargain. Courts can achieve that interpretation by, in part, minimizing the interpretive risk that parties face when they draft an express contract but fail to …

Rescission In Texas, A Suspect Remedy, George P. Roach

George P Roach

Rescission in Texas, A Suspect Remedy

Equitable remedies are sometimes overlooked even when favorable ex post changes in values or operating performance warrant their serious consideration. Due to liberalized standards for pleading and electing alternative remedies, rescission in Texas can provide a windfall to the claimant in comparison to standard monetary damages especially after favorable ex post changes. Texas courts are aware of the windfall incentive and can treat the claimant’s plea for rescission as suspect or opportunistic. Litigators on either side of a plea for rescission should consider how their case supports or refutes the suspicion that rescission would …

Social Media And The Rise In Consumer Bargaining Power, Wayne Barnes

Wayne Barnes

Consumers are constantly entering into form contracts, both offline and online. They do not read most of the terms, but the duty to read says the contracts are nevertheless fully enforceable. Moreover, consumers lack any real bargaining power when assenting to such contracts with merchants. Not only that, but if the products malfunctions, or they are somehow damaged by it, they will likely face the prospect of being limited in their available remedies because of boilerplate terms which are favorable to the merchant. In the “old days,” the consumer had no real recourse but to call a 1-800 number, and …

Social Media And The Rise In Consumer Bargaining Power, Wayne Barnes

Wayne Barnes

Consumers are constantly entering into form contracts, both offline and online. They do not read most of the terms, but the duty to read says the contracts are nevertheless fully enforceable. Moreover, consumers lack any real bargaining power when assenting to such contracts with merchants. Not only that, but if the products malfunctions, or they are somehow damaged by it, they will likely face the prospect of being limited in their available remedies because of boilerplate terms which are favorable to the merchant. In the “old days,” the consumer had no real recourse but to call a 1-800 number, and …

Social Media And The Rise In Consumer Bargaining Power, Wayne Barnes

Wayne Barnes

Consumers are constantly entering into form contracts, both offline and online. They do not read most of the terms, but the duty to read says the contracts are nevertheless fully enforceable. Moreover, consumers lack any real bargaining power when assenting to such contracts with merchants. Not only that, but if the products malfunctions, or they are somehow damaged by it, they will likely face the prospect of being limited in their available remedies because of boilerplate terms which are favorable to the merchant. In the “old days,” the consumer had no real recourse but to call a 1-800 number, and …

Social Media And The Rise In Consumer Bargaining Power, Wayne Barnes

Wayne Barnes

Consumers are constantly entering into form contracts, both offline and online. They do not read most of the terms, but the duty to read says the contracts are nevertheless fully enforceable. Moreover, consumers lack any real bargaining power when assenting to such contracts with merchants. Not only that, but if the products malfunctions, or they are somehow damaged by it, they will likely face the prospect of being limited in their available remedies because of boilerplate terms which are favorable to the merchant. In the “old days,” the consumer had no real recourse but to call a 1-800 number, and …

A Consequentialist Approach To Interpretation, Probabilistic Mechanisms, And Risk: Let’S Not Limit Courts’ Techniques Of Common Law Adjudication; Rethinking Judicial Intervention From Contracts To The Chrysler Bankruptcy, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Juliet P Kostritsky

Employing an economics-based consequentialist approach to contract interpretation (focusing on the prospective effect and the factors that might justify intervention) this Article attempts to identify the precise parameters of an optimal framework for contract interpretation. Such a framework would seek to maximize gains from trade. The issue in such cases is always, given the words the parties used, what is the best (surplus maximizing) interpretation of the bargain. Courts can achieve that interpretation by, in part, minimizing the interpretive risk that parties face when they draft an express contract but fail to completely resolve all possible issues. This Article uses …

The End Of Mortgage Securitization? Electronic Registration As A Threat To Bankruptcy Remotenes, John P. Hunt, Richard Stanton, Nancy Wallace

John P Hunt

A central tenet of asset securitization in the United States—that assets are bankruptcy remote from their sponsors—may be threatened by innovations in the transfer of mortgage loans from the loan-originators (sponsors) to the legal entities that own the mortgage pools (the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs)). The major legal argument advanced in the paper is that because the mortgage is an interest in real property, the bankruptcy-remoteness rules applicable to real property, including § 544(a)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code, create a risk to the bankruptcy remoteness of mortgage transactions unless proper recording occurs. We review the traditional mortgage transfer process and …

The Availability Of Takeover Defenses And Deal Protection Devices For Anglo-American Target Companies, Albert "Chip" Saulsbury Iv

Albert "Chip" Saulsbury IV

On July 21, 2011 the U.K.’s Panel on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Panel”) released amendments to the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the “Takeover Code”). These amendments, which take effect on September 19, 2011, will have a significant impact on the manner in which companies in the U.K. engage in mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) and will amplify the differences between British and American deal activity. Because of these amendments to the Takeover Code within the last month, the following Article, The Availability of Takeover Defenses and Deal Protection Devices for Anglo-American Target Companies, is especially timely and will provide …

Arbitration Agreements Used By Nursing Homes: An Empirical Study And Critique Of At&T Mobility V. Concepcion, Lisa Tripp

Lisa Tripp

Although the health care industry had historically been one of the fields that had not embraced pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements, that reluctance appears to be changing in at least one sector of the health care field. An examination of admission contracts used by North Carolina nursing homes and telephone survey of North Carolina nursing homes revealed that 43 percent of nursing homes now incorporate pre-dispute binding arbitration provisions into their admission contracts. All of the major nursing home chains operating in North Carolina use pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements in at least some of their facilities, while smaller operators use them …

Freedom Of Contract In An Augmented Reality: The Case Of Consumer Contracts, Scott Peppet

Scott Peppet

This Article argues that freedom of contract will take on different meaning in a world in which ubiquitous information about places, goods, people, firms and contract terms is available to contracting parties anywhere, any time. In particular, our increasingly “augmented reality” calls into question leading justifications for distrusting consumer contracts—and thereby strengthens traditional understandings of freedom of contract as enforcing contracts as written. This is largely a descriptive and predictive argument: the Article aims to introduce contract law to these technologies and consider their most likely effects. It certainly has normative implications, however. Given that the vast majority of consumer …

Huch V. Charter Communications Inc.: Consumer Prey, Corporate Predators And A Call For The Death Of The Voluntary Payment Doctrine Defense, Oliver T. Beatty

Oliver T Beatty

This article addresses the collision between consumer fraud statutes, which developed in the last forty years, and the voluntary payment doctrine, which dates back to the 1600’s. The voluntary payment doctrine (“VPD”) provides, in its most common form, that “absent fraud or duress, a person who pays with full knowledge of all the facts cannot recover the money back again.” This doctrine holds true even if the money is not legally owed, and in some cases, even if the payment is made under protest. Conversely, consumer fraud statutes typically allow consumers to recover damages in a broad range of contexts, …

Re-Conceptualizing The Law Of Nuisance Through A Theory Of Economic Captivity, George P. Smith

George P Smith

Re-conceptualizing the Law of Nuisance through a Theory of Economic Captivity

George P. Smith, II

Matthew Saunig

Abstract:

Generally, the fact that a plaintiff comes to a nuisance is not a per se defense to a nuisance action. This defense is viewed in many jurisdictions as but a factor in determining whether a defendant’s conduct is an unreasonable interference with use and enjoyment of a neighbor’s property. In principle, two other affirmative defenses are—although not often allowed in practice by the courts—found in contributory negligence and assumption of the risk.

This Article seeks to develop a theory of economic captivity …

All Your Eggs In One Basket: Why Contract Law Proves Unreliable In Frozen Embryo Adoption Cases, Austin R. Caster

Austin R Caster

This article will show why infertile couples cannot unequivocally rely on good faith, consensual contracts in cases of assisted reproductive technology because the law is so unsettled. Each section will show why, because of alleged public policy implications, contract doctrines or clauses such as (1) the termination of parental rights, (2) the doctrine of waste, and (3) liquidated damages still remain almost completely unreliable in a matter regarding assisted reproductive technology. Though this uncertainty affects infertile couples trying to complete their families through various methods including adoption, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and artificial insemination, this article will focus on cases …

Antitrust In The Skies: The United And Olympic Airline Mergers, Justin Dickerson

Justin Dickerson

This Article explores the 2010 merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines—which usurped Delta’s briefly-held title as the world’s largest airline—as well as the failed merger of Greece’s two largest airlines, Olympic Air and Aegean Airlines, and the antitrust considerations associated with each of these transactions. Part II of this Article details the United and Continental merger, explaining pertinent portions of each airline’s corporate history over the past 10 years, which has included multiple other unsuccessful merger attempts. Next, Part III describes the circumstances surrounding the failed combination of Olympic and Aegean, including the role the Greek financial crisis played …

Wind Turbine Wakes, Wake Effect Impacts, And Wind Leases: Using Solar Access Laws As The Model For Capitalizing On Wind Rights During The Evolution Of Wind Policy Standards, Kimberly E. Diamond, Ellen J. Crivella

Ellen J Crivella

Wind rights and access to natural wind flow raise important legal issues, policy questions, opportunities, and financial risks for landowners and their neighbors, as well as for wind facility developers. This is particularly evident with respect to the phenomenon called wake effect (downwind effect), as natural wind flow access between adjacent developers and the rights and income streams that flow with it, can be adversely impacted and can influence such developers’ decision as to whether or not to construct a wind project. Applying precedents founded on litigation-based legal theories invites confrontation between impacted parties and may not be the best …

A Deposit Substitute For Post Dodd-Frank Regulatory Policy Assessments Of Emergent Payments: A Taxonomical Approach, Eniola Akindemowo

Eniola Akindemowo

Existing stored value products (SVPs) are early prototypes of what payments and money will become: digital, disintermediated, and, possibly, neither state- nor bank-issued. The formulation of stored value regulatory policy in the U.S. has been a complicated, slow process however, producing a piecemeal scheme of broadly uneven regulations. Suffice it to say that the result of several short-term fixes has been to postpone looming inefficiencies and highlight limitations stemming from inconsistencies inherent in their use.

Past regulatory efforts have thrown a startling fact into sharp relief: The relevance of deposits, the hallowed central concept of payments jurisprudence, is undermined in …

Mers: Creating Efficiencies Or Clouding Titles? Examining Challenges To The Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Christian Carson

Christian Carson

The Mortgage Electronic Registration System has recently come under fire amidst the recent foreclosure crisis. Since MERS is mortgagee of record to more than 60 million mortgages in the United States, the question as to whether it has standing to foreclose on defaulted loans presents a hurdle to the speedy recovery of the housing market.

It is likely that the MERS framework is a sound one that complies with longstanding principles of property and agency law. Examination of the controlling Supreme Court case Carpenter v. Longan and Restatement commentary reveals that a separation of the mortgage and the note does …

False Security: How Securitization Failed To Protect Arrangers And Investors From Borrower Claims, Kathleen C. Engel, Thomans J. Fitzpatrick

kathleen c engel

False Security: How Securitization Failed to Protect Arrangers and Investors from Borrower Claims

by Kathleen C. Engel and Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV

The future of housing finance is in a state of flux. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest loan arrangers in the United States, are in conservatorship. Private sector securitization of mortgages has almost completely stopped. As a result, Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae now own or guarantee almost all new residential mortgage loans. In February 2011, the Obama Administration released a proposal outlining three plans for the future of housing finance. In all three plans, Freddie …

The Global Shadow Bank--Systemic Risk And Tax Policy Objectives: The Uncertain Case Of Foreign Hedge Fund Lending In The United States, Julie A.D. Manasfi

Julie A.D. Manasfi

ABSTRACT: THE GLOBAL SHADOW BANK-- SYSTEMIC RISK AND TAX POLICY OBJECTIVES: THE UNCERTAIN CASE OF FOREIGN HEDGE FUND LENDING IN THE UNITED STATES With the recent financial crisis in the U.S. starting in 2007, much attention has been drawn to the issue of whether and to what extent financial regulation should keep pace with financial innovation and the shadow banking system. However, often ignored is the Internal Revenue Code’s failure to adequately keep pace with this financial innovation. One example of how the tax laws lag behind financial innovation can be found in the taxation of lending into the U.S. …

Recalibrating Abstract Payments Regulatory Policy: A Retrospective After The Dodd-Frank Act, Eniola Akindemowo

Eniola Akindemowo

The future efficiency of the payments system is at stake. Existing stored value products (SVPs e.g. gift cards and gift card apps) are early prototypes of what payments and money will become – digital, dis-intermediated, and possibly, neither state nor bank issued. These products have defied sustained efforts to pigeonhole them into traditional categories. Significantly, past regulatory efforts have thrown a startling fact into sharp relief: the relevance of deposits – the hallowed central concept of payments jurisprudence – is being undermined in SVPs and emergent payments. What this means is that the role of deposits – the lynch pin …

Warranting Rightful Claims, Karen E. Sandrik

Karen E. Sandrik

Damage awards for patent infringement have sky-rocketed and sparked significant debate in recent years. A part of this patent damage debate focuses on non-practicing entities, or so-called “patent trolls.” A patent troll is a patent owner that demands a royalty based on patented technology, yet does not actually make use of the technology to provide an end product or service. Patent trolls are known for their aggressive and opportunistic behavior. Their strategy is simple: create nuisance and inflict fear. Often, patent trolls employ this strategy against the buyers of goods that use the patented technology. Increasingly, those buyers are availing …

Shute: The Math Is Off, Tom Cummins

Tom Cummins

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Court’s decision in Carnival Cruises v. Shute. Reversing the common law rule that forum selection clauses in form contracts are presumptively unenforceable, the Court reasoned that such clauses should be enforced because consumers “benefit in the form of reduced [prices] reflecting the savings that the [firm] enjoys by limiting the fora in which it may be sued.” The Court’s calculation was off, however, because it failed to account for the latent costs of such clauses. This Essay begins the project of getting the math (and, perhaps, the law). The thesis is that …