Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Quasi-Appraisal: Appraising Breach Of Duty Of Disclosure Claims Following "Cash-Out" Mergers In Delaware, Zachary A. Paiva

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In recent years, Delaware has served as the hot bed for the dramatic increase in merger appraisal litigation and the proliferation of “appraisal arbitrage” whereby opportunistic shareholders buy into companies following merger announcements and challenge announced deal prices as an investment strategy. While this has not always proved profitable, it has increased scrutiny over the Delaware appraisal regime and the ability for shareholders to avail themselves of the opportunity for a judicial valuation of their shares. Furthermore, it has highlighted information asymmetries in which controlling shareholders, particularly those seeking to cash out their minority shareholders, are incentivized to underpay or …

Rethinking Corporate Governance For A Bondholder Financed, Systemically Risky World, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This Article makes two arguments that, combined, demonstrate an important synergy: first, including bondholders in corporate governance could help to reduce systemic risk because bondholders are more risk averse than shareholders; second, corporate governance should include bondholders because bonds now dwarf equity as a source of corporate financing and bond prices are increasingly tied to firm performance.

Disciplining Corporate Boards And Debtholders Through Targeted Proxy Access, Michelle M. Harner

Indiana Law Journal

Corporate directors committed to a failed business strategy or unduly influenced by the company’s debtholders need a dissenting voice—they need shareholder nominees on the board. This Article examines the biases, conflicts, and external factors that impact board decisions, particularly when a company faces financial distress. It challenges the conventional wisdom that debt disciplines management, and it sug-gests that, in certain circumstances, the company would benefit from having the shareholders’ perspective more actively represented on the board. To that end, the Article proposes a bylaw that would give shareholders the ability to nominate direc-tors upon the occurrence of predefined events. Such …

Perspectives On Regulating Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter, which synthesizes several of the author’s articles, attempts to provide useful perspectives on regulating systemic risk. First, it argues that systemic shocks are inevitable. Accordingly, regulation should be designed not only to try to reduce those shocks but also to protect the financial system against their unavoidable impact. This could be done, the chapter explains, by applying chaos theory to help stabilize the financial system. The chapter then focuses on trying to prevent excessive corporate risk-taking, which is one of the leading triggers of systemic shocks and widely regarded to have been a principal cause of the …

Shadow Banking And Regulation In China And Other Developing Countries, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

The rapid but largely unregulated growth in shadow banking in developing countries such as China can jeopardize financial stability. This article discusses that growth and argues that a regulatory balance is needed to help protect financial stability while preserving shadow banking as an important channel of alternative funding. The article also analyzes how that regulation could be designed.

Institutional Investors In Corporate Governance, Edward B. Rock

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter of the Oxford Handbook on Corporate Law and Governance examines the role of institutional investors in corporate governance and the role of regulation in encouraging institutional investors to become active stewards. I approach these topics through asking what lessons we can draw from the U.S. experience for the E.U.’s 2014 proposed amendments to the Shareholder Rights Directive.

I begin by defining the institutional investor category, and summarizing the growth of institutional investors’ equity holdings over time. I then briefly survey how institutional investors themselves are governed and how they organize share voting. This leads me to two central …

The Mess At Morgan: Risk, Incentives And Shareholder Empowerment, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The financial crisis of 2008 focused increasing attention on corporate America and, in particular, the risk-taking behavior of large financial institutions. A growing appreciation of the “public” nature of the corporation resulted in a substantial number of high profile enforcement actions. In addition, demands for greater accountability led policymakers to attempt to harness the corporation’s internal decision-making structure, in the name of improved corporate governance, to further the interest of non-shareholder stakeholders. Dodd-Frank’s advisory vote on executive compensation is an example.

This essay argues that the effort to employ shareholders as agents of public values and, thereby, to inculcate corporate …

New York Stock Exchange, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of the origins and early development of the New York Stock Exchange.

Market Efficiency And The Problem Of Retail Flight, Alicia J. Davis

Alicia Davis

In 1950, 91% of common stock in the U.S. was owned directly by individual investors. Today, that percentage stands at only 23%. The mass exodus of retail investors and their investment dollars has negative implications not only for capital formation and investor protection, but also for market efficiency. Individual investors are often assumed to be noise traders who distort stock prices and harm market functioning. Therefore, some argue that their withdrawal from the market should be of little concern; indeed, it should be celebrated. Recent empirical evidence calls this assertion of retail noise trading into doubt, and this paper, which …

Behaviorism In Finance And Securities Law, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I take stock (as something of an outsider) of the behavioral economics movement, focusing in particular on its interaction with traditional cost-benefit analysis and its implications for agency structure. The usual strategy for such a project—a strategy that has been used by others with behavioral economics—is to marshal the existing evidence and critically assess its significance. My approach in this Essay is somewhat different. Although I describe behavioral economics and summarize the strongest criticisms of its use, the heart of the Essay is inductive, and focuses on a particular context: financial and securities regulation, as recently revamped …

Global Expansion Of National Securities Laws: Extraterritoriality And Jurisdictional Conflicts, Junsun Park

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “As securities fraud has grown increasingly transnational, it has become necessary to expand the reach of anti-fraud provisions to persons and entities participating in global securities markets. So far, however, no single antifraud provision exists to govern the entire global marketplace. Although each country strives to combat international securities fraud by using its own regulatory regime, problems can develop when extraterritorial application of national securities laws leads to regulatory overlapping or conflicts. In light of these problems, it is necessary to set forth clear guidelines for determining whether national securities laws can apply extraterritorially and, if so, how far …

Why Do Retail Investors Make Costly Mistakes? An Experiment On Mutual Fund Choice, Jill E. Fisch, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

There is mounting evidence that retail investors make predictable, costly investment mistakes, including underinvestment, naïve diversification, and payment of excessive fund fees. Over the past thirty-five years, however, participant-directed 401(k) plans have largely replaced professionally managed pension plans, requiring unsophisticated retail investors to navigate the financial markets themselves. Policy-makers have struggled with regulatory interventions designed to improve the quality of investment decisions without a clear understanding of the reasons for investor mistakes. Absent such an understanding, it is difficult to design effective regulatory responses.

This article offers a first step in understanding the investor decision-making process. We use an internet-based …

Goliath Versus Goliath In Hight-Stakes Mbs Litigation, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Bradley T. Borden

The loan-origination and mortgage-securitization practices between 2000 and 2007 created the housing and mortgage-backed securities bubble that precipitated the 2008 economic crisis and ensuing recession. The mess that the loan-origination and mortgage-securitization practices caused is now playing out in courts around the world. MBS investors are suing banks, MBS sponsors and underwriters for misrepresenting the quality of loans purportedly held in MBS pools and failing to properly transfer loan documents and mortgages to the pools, as required by the MBS pooling and servicing agreements. State and federal prosecutors have also filed claims against banks, underwriters and sponsors for the roles …

In Search Of Safe Harbor: Suggestions For The New Rule 506(C), Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

I devote most of this essay to exploring how, exactly, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) should go about providing guidelines to implement the statutory requirement that issuers have a reasonable belief that a purchaser is accredited. The SEC has proposed rules, but these rules merely restate what Congress has already required, thus sidestepping Congress’s direction that the agency itself articulate some verification methods. Taking the SEC’s decidedly amorphous proposal to task, I recommend that the SEC offer two nonexclusive safe harbors for issuers to guide them in determining whether a natural person is an accredited investor. The paragraphs below …

Ipos And The Slow Death Of Section 5, Donald C. Langevoort, Robert B. Thompson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since its enactment, Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 has restricted sales-based communications with investors, but that effort is nearly dead even with respect to the most sensitive of offerings, the IPO. Our paper traces that devolution, which began almost as soon as the ’33 Act came into existence, though the SEC’s 2005 deregulatory reforms and Congress’ intervention in the JOBS Act of 2012. We show how much of this related to an embrace of “book-building” as the industry’s preferred method of price discovery, which requires private two-way communications between underwriters and potential sophisticated investors. But book-building (and …

Who Calls The Shots?: How Mutual Funds Vote On Director Elections, Stephen J. Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan

All Faculty Scholarship

Shareholder voting has become an increasingly important focus of corporate governance, and mutual funds control a substantial percentage of shareholder voting power. The manner in which mutual funds exercise that power, however, is poorly understood. In particular, because neither mutual funds nor their advisors are beneficial owners of their portfolio holdings, there is concern that mutual fund voting may be uninformed or tainted by conflicts of interest. These concerns, if true, hamper the potential effectiveness of regulatory reforms such as proxy access and say on pay. This article analyzes mutual fund voting decisions in uncontested director elections. We find that …

La Transparencia En La Protección De Datos Personales, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

La Transparencia en la Protección de Datos Personales, ponencia elaborada dentro de los trabajos del VII Congreso Nacional de Organismos Públicos Autónomos (OPAM)

The Alternative Forms Of Dispute Settlement And The Essential Difference Between These And Arbitration, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

The paper examines the characteristics of some common alternative forms of dispute settlement and their key differences from arbitration regarding their nature and scope. Its purpose is to explore each mechanism's suitability for specific types of disputes.

Aspectos Generales Dela Publicidad En México. "La Publicidad De Productos, Servicios, Y Actividades Reguladas Por La Ley General De Salud", Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Introducción a las generalidades de la regulación en materia de publicidad de insumos para el consumo humano (salud) en México.

Burning Down The House Or Simply Rolling The Dice: A Comment On Section 621 Of The Dodd-Frank Act And Recommendation For Its Implementation, Joshua R. Rosenthal

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Section 621 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act modifies the Securities Act of 1933 to prohibit the underwriter, placement agent, initial purchaser, or sponsor, or any affiliate or subsidiary of any such entity of an asset-backed financial product from betting against that very product for one year after the product’s initial sale. The rule prohibits anyone who structures or sells an asset-backed security or a product composed of asset-backed securities from going short, in the specified timeframe, on what they have sold, and labels such transactions as presenting material conflicts of interest. This Comment discusses traces …

Dodd-Frank, Securitization, And The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stephen P. Hoffman

Stephen P. Hoffman

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the regulation of financial markets in order to not only prevent such disasters in the future, but to help restore financial stability more quickly if and when they do occur. In this Paper, I provide a background of the events leading up to the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression, focusing on …

A Floating Nav For Money Market Funds: Fix Or Fantasy?, Jill E. Fisch, Eric D. Roiter

All Faculty Scholarship

The announcement by the Reserve Primary Fund, in September 2008, that it was “breaking the buck,” triggered a widespread withdrawal of assets from other money market funds and led the U.S. Government to adopt emergency measures to maintain the stability of the short term credit markets. In light of these events, the SEC heightened the regulatory requirements to which money market funds – a three trillion dollar industry -- are subject. Regulators and commentators continue to press for further regulatory change, however. The most controversial reform proposal would eliminate the ability of money market funds to purchase and sell shares …

The End Of The Internal Compliance World As We Know It, Or An Enhancement Of The Effectiveness Of Securities Law Enforcement? Bounty Hunting Under The Dodd-Frank Act's Whistleblower Provision, Justin Blount, Spencer Markel

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In the wake of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme and the recent economic crisis stemming largely from loosely regulated subprime lending and mortgage-backed securities, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on July 21, 2010, signaling loudly and clearly that change is coming to Wall Street. But Wall Street is not the only one receiving a message. Buried deep within the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Act, companies can find Section 922, the whistleblower provision, which provides a bounty for whistleblowers who report securities violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.These bounty provisions and …

Lessons From The Flash Crash For The Regulation Of High-Frequency Traders, Edgar Ortega Barrales

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Are equity markets vulnerable to a sudden collapse if the traders who account for about half of the volume have no regulatory obligations to stabilize prices? After the “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, policymakers have resoundingly answered this question in the affirmative. During the worst of the crash, some of the so-called high-frequency trading firms that dominate equity markets stopped trading and prices collapsed, momentarily wiping out almost $1 trillion in market value. In response, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether high-frequency trading firms should be required to act as the traders of last resort. This …

Noción Y Elementos Existenciales Del Título De Crédito, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Discernir la noción y elementos de existencia de los títulos de crédito, considerando la doctrina y la denominación expresada en nuestra Ley General de Títulos y Operaciones de Crédito, conceptualizando el término de los documentos que consignan un derecho crediticio propio de su naturaleza y deslindando de manera dogmatica y exegética los elementos que lo forman y le dan su funcionamiento, mediante una visión de las instituciones jurídicas que les dan su existencia y aplicación dentro del devenir de los actos de comercio.

Generalidades De La Propiedad Intelectual En México, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Presentación de las Generalidades de la Propiedad Intelectual en México (Propiedad Industrial y Derechos de Autor), legislación que la rige, aplicación y modalidades

Ownership Unbundling In European Energy Market & Legal Problems Under Eu Law, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper we will examine the issue of ownership unbundling and forced divestiture remedies imposed in a series of recent competition law cases of the energy market - examined in other papers - in relation to the possible existence of a series of legal obstacles. These energy market decisions belong to a group of antitrust cases in which a structural divestiture remedy has been imposed under the provisions of Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003. This divestiture refers to transmission networks and to generation capacity and is meant to lead to severe structural changes, which are compatible with the findings …

La Jurisprudencia En México, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Breve presentación de la jurisprudencia en México, su aplicación, objetivos y fines para el Derecho Mexicano. ¿Por qué es util para el derecho? ¿Quién la emite?

Notariado Y Correduria Y Su Registro En México, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Introducción al Derecho Notarial y Registral en México, cuyo objeto es conocer los elementos de las figuras del notario y del corredor público, la formalización de sus actos y su registro.

Competition Law And Sector Regulation In The European Energy Market After The Third Energy Package: Hierarchy And Efficiency, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

The aim of this research is to provide the basic parameters for a model for the definition of the relation between the general competition and sector specific frameworks and rules regarding the regulation of the Internal Energy Market, especially after the Third Energy Package. The research considers the recent sector specific framework in relation to a series of recent competition law cases of the Energy Market where structural remedies were applied under the commitments procedure. Essential facilities doctrine and generally competition law tools do not seem to provide a suitable framework for effectively addressing the dynamic competition concept, treating the …