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Full-Text Articles in Law

Basel Iii E: Synthetic Financing By Prime Brokers, Christian M. Mcnamara, Andrew Metrick Jan 2020

Basel Iii E: Synthetic Financing By Prime Brokers, Christian M. Mcnamara, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

Hedge funds rely on “prime brokerage” units within banks to provide leverage. With the enhanced capital requirements and new liquidity standards introduced by Basel III driving up the cost to banks of engaging in such financing, prime brokers have begun to offer an alternative means of providing hedge fund clients with leveraged exposure to securities. Known as synthetic financing, this alternative requires the prime broker to enter into derivatives contracts with the clients. Under the Basel III framework, the ability of banks to hedge and net such derivative positions results in capital and liquidity costs for synthetic financing that are …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale Z: Background & Overview, Arwin G. Zeissler, Rosalind Bennett, Andrew Metrick Jan 2020

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale Z: Background & Overview, Arwin G. Zeissler, Rosalind Bennett, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2011, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) instructed the bank’s Chief Investment Office to reduce the size of its Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) during 2012, so that JPM could decrease its Risk-Weighted Assets as the bank prepared to adopt the impending Basel III bank capital regulations. However, the SCP traders were also told to minimize the trading costs incurred to reduce Risk-Weighted Assets, while still maintaining the opportunity to profit from unexpected corporate bankruptcies. In an attempt to balance these competing objectives, head SCP derivatives trader Bruno Iksil suggested in January 2012 …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale H: Cross-Border Regulation, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a global financial service provider, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by banking regulatory agencies in different countries. Bruno Iksil, the derivatives trader primarily responsible for the $6 billion trading loss in 2012, was based in JPM’s London office. This office was regulated both by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) of the United States (US) and by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which served as the sole regulator of all financial services in the United Kingdom (UK). Banking regulators in the US and the UK have entered into agreements with one another to define basic parameters …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale G: Hedging Versus Proprietary Trading, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2013, the primary United States financial regulatory agencies jointly adopted final rules to implement Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which is often referred to as the “Volcker Rule”. Section 619 prohibits banks from engaging in activities considered to be particularly risky, including proprietary trading and owning hedge funds or private equity funds. Banking regulators designed the final rule against proprietary trading in part to prevent losses like the $6 billion London Whale loss that took place in 2012 at JPMorgan Chase. Given the controversial nature of the Volcker Rule, it is …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale F: Required Securities Disclosures, Arwin G. Zeissler, Giulio Girardi, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

On April 13, 2012, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Chief Financial Officer Douglas Braunstein took part in a conference call to discuss the bank’s first quarter 2012 earnings. Coming just a week after media reports first questioned the risks taken by JPM derivatives trader Bruno Iksil, Braunstein made a series of assertions about the trades. On May 10, JPM finalized its first quarter financial results, which included some disclosures regarding Iksil’s trading that were substantially different from Braunstein’s statements of April 13. At issue is whether the regulatory filings on April 13 and May 10, as well as verbal comments by Braunstein …


Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick Aug 2019

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale E: Supervisory Oversight, Arwin G. Zeissler, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

As a diversified financial service provider and the largest United States bank holding company, JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is supervised by multiple regulatory agencies. JPM’s commercial bank subsidiaries hold a national charter and therefore are regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Since the bank’s Chief Investment Office (CIO) invested the surplus deposits of JPM’s commercial bank units, the OCC was also CIO’s primary regulator. During the critical period from late January through March 2012, when CIO traders undertook the failed derivatives strategy that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion, JPM did not provide the OCC with …


The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy G: The Special Case Of Derivatives, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick Mar 2019

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy G: The Special Case Of Derivatives, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

When it filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2008, Lehman Brothers was an active participant in the derivatives market and was party to 906,000 derivative transactions of all types under 6,120 ISDA Master Agreements with an estimated notional value of $35 trillion. The majority of Lehman’s derivatives were bilateral agreements not traded on an exchange but in the over-the-counter (OTC) market. Because derivatives enjoyed an exemption from the automatic stay provisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, parties to Lehman’s derivatives could seek resolution and self-protection without the guidance and restraint of the bankruptcy court. The rush of counterparties to novate …


Evaluating The Costs And Benefits Of A Smart Contract Blockchain Framework For Credit Default Swaps, Ryan Clements Feb 2019

Evaluating The Costs And Benefits Of A Smart Contract Blockchain Framework For Credit Default Swaps, Ryan Clements

William & Mary Business Law Review

Despite wide speculation about its use-value, there are very few large-scale Blockchain implementations, particularly in sophisticated financial applications and mature markets. The extent of Blockchain’s disruptive potential in these domains is uncertain. This Article considers Blockchain’s use-value for credit default swap contract execution, fulfillment, and post-trade processing by using, as an assessment base, a series of derivative industry whitepapers, academic and technological evaluative studies, and commentary relating to current market undertakings. In summary, when applied to credit default swaps, there are many barriers to implementation, as well as costs, fragmentation risks, technological deficiencies, and practical drawbacks. As a result, there …


Equity Derivatives And The Challenge For Berle’S Conception Of Corporate Accountability, Janis Sarra Mar 2013

Equity Derivatives And The Challenge For Berle’S Conception Of Corporate Accountability, Janis Sarra

Seattle University Law Review

With the proliferation of equity derivatives and related structured financial products, the North American conception of corporate governance faces a new and distinct challenge to its underlying premises.This Article analyzes these developments with a focus on the implications for director and officer accountability and corporate sustainability, using the occasion of the third symposium of the Adolf A. Berle, Jr. Center on Corporations, Law & Society to consider whether Berle’s analysis of corporate accountability offers any insights into how to address the uncoupling of economic interest and legal rights in corporate governance. Part II of this Article sets the context for …


Hedge Funds And Risk Decoupling: The Empty Voting Problem In The European Union, Wolf-Georg Ringe Mar 2013

Hedge Funds And Risk Decoupling: The Empty Voting Problem In The European Union, Wolf-Georg Ringe

Seattle University Law Review

The law must remain adaptive and responsive to the constantly changing challenges of our society and our business life. One of the most pressing challenges of the past years is the emergence of alternative investment funds, in particular hedge funds, which masterfully exploit the traditional categories of corporate law, financial derivatives, and risk management. This Article is only concerned with the first of these two forms— negative decoupling.9 It looks at the various forms of negative riskdecoupling strategies and tries to shed light on their overall desirability. Three distinct theoretical perspectives are used as an analytical framework to examine the …


Things Fall Apart: Regulating The Credit Default Swap Commons, Kristen N. Johnson Jan 2011

Things Fall Apart: Regulating The Credit Default Swap Commons, Kristen N. Johnson

University of Colorado Law Review

Financial markets are an important national and international infrastructure resource that reflect attributes similar to the those that characterize commons, as described in property law literature. Through a case study examining the credit default swap market, this Article illustrates the analogy between financial markets and a traditional commons. After exploring the attributes of a commons, this Article examines the costs and benefits of the credit default swap market. Similar to a traditional commons, tragedy in financial markets occurs when market participants capture benefits while imposing the costs or negative externalities from their activities on other members of society. Commons scholars' …


Risks And Hedges Of Providing Liquidity In Complex Securities: The Impact Of Insider Trading On Options Market Makers, Stanislav Dolgopolov Jan 2010

Risks And Hedges Of Providing Liquidity In Complex Securities: The Impact Of Insider Trading On Options Market Makers, Stanislav Dolgopolov

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Counterparty Regulation And Its Limits: The Evolution Of The Credit Default Swaps Market, Houman B. Shadab Jan 2010

Counterparty Regulation And Its Limits: The Evolution Of The Credit Default Swaps Market, Houman B. Shadab

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.


Still "Ain't No Glory In Pain": How The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 And Other 1990s Deregulation Facilitated The Market Crash Of 2002, André Douglas Pond Cummings Jan 2007

Still "Ain't No Glory In Pain": How The Telecommunications Act Of 1996 And Other 1990s Deregulation Facilitated The Market Crash Of 2002, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Corporate Governance Issues, Peter Peterson, John Foster, Jeffrey M. Colon, William Treanor Jan 2003

Corporate Governance Issues, Peter Peterson, John Foster, Jeffrey M. Colon, William Treanor

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Accounting, Steven Raymar, John Finnerty, Michael Zwecher Jan 2003

Accounting, Steven Raymar, John Finnerty, Michael Zwecher

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Keynote Address, Susan S. Bies, Alan Rechtschaffen Jan 2003

Keynote Address, Susan S. Bies, Alan Rechtschaffen

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


The International Symposium On Derivatives And Risk Management, Carl Felsenfeld, Alan N. Rechtschaffen, Carolyn H. Jackson, Ruth W. Ainslie, Michael N. Brosnan, Darcy Bradbury, Denis M. Forster, Martin Bienenstock, David A.P. Brower, Aaron Rubinstein, David Morris, Eric Seiler, Peter D. Morgenstern, Michael J. Malone, John Lovi, Alvin K. Hellerstein, Charles E. Ramos Jan 2000

The International Symposium On Derivatives And Risk Management, Carl Felsenfeld, Alan N. Rechtschaffen, Carolyn H. Jackson, Ruth W. Ainslie, Michael N. Brosnan, Darcy Bradbury, Denis M. Forster, Martin Bienenstock, David A.P. Brower, Aaron Rubinstein, David Morris, Eric Seiler, Peter D. Morgenstern, Michael J. Malone, John Lovi, Alvin K. Hellerstein, Charles E. Ramos

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Stability In World Financial Markets: Introductory Remarks, Alan Rechtschaffen Jan 1999

Stability In World Financial Markets: Introductory Remarks, Alan Rechtschaffen

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Recent Market Events And The Foundation For Global Market Crises: A Lawyer's Perspective, Philip H. Harris Jan 1999

Recent Market Events And The Foundation For Global Market Crises: A Lawyer's Perspective, Philip H. Harris

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.


Treatment Of Interest Rate Swaps Under The Sec's Net Capital Rule: A Proposal For Change, Matthew Calhoun Frost Feb 1996

Treatment Of Interest Rate Swaps Under The Sec's Net Capital Rule: A Proposal For Change, Matthew Calhoun Frost

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.