Law Commons^™

A Look Back In Time: Analyzing The Success And Value Of The 2014 Amendments To Rule 2a-7 And Reporting On Form N-Cr In Light Of The March 2020 Market Events, Jocelyn Near

Catholic University Law Review

Money market funds have frequently been a target of regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Perhaps the most expansive regulation came as a response to the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck.” The SEC’s misguided 2014 reforms exacerbated the inherent risks of money market funds, including the risk of runs and first mover advantage, particularly with the implementation of Form N-CR. Form N-CR requires a money market fund to publicly report when various events occur, including when a retail or government money market fund’s current net asset value per share deviates downward …

Calpers V. Anz Securities: Securities Time Bars, Whit Kendall

Mississippi College Law Review

Statutes of limitations and statutes of repose are critical mechanisms that help to limit liability in civil actions. In many instances, these two time bars are paired together in order to protect a defendant from an interminable threat of liability. Although these time limits are present in many types of statutes, they are especially important in statutes involving securities offerings because of the need to protect financial security. In the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"), there are two time bars, a statute of limitations and a statute of repose, which attempt to protect potential defendants from liability regarding the …

How To Interpret The Securities Laws?, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In discussions of the federal securities laws, the SEC usually gets most of the attention. This makes some sense. After all, it is the agency charged with administrating the securities laws and regulating the industry as a whole. It makes the majority of the laws; it engages in enforcement actions; it reacts to crises; and it, or sometimes even its individual commissioners, intervene publicly in policy debates. Often overlooked in such discussion, however, is the role of the Supreme Court in shaping securities law, and a new book by Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson demonstrates why this is an oversight. …

Rational Investing Or Speculative Fever?: Spacs, Robinhood, And Digital Assets—Securities Markets Or Casinos?, Thomas Lee Hazen

FIU Law Review

This article focuses a recurring theme – speculation in the financial markets. The 2010-2020 decade set the stage for a new round of speculative activity starting in 2021. In the article that follows I reflect on a new wave of speculation and three current examples of speculative activity. The article concludes that regulators should be cautious about over-regulation of SPACs and gamified trading. The article also supports the regulation of digital assets (crypto currencies and NFTs) as securities.

Angels And Devils: The Early Crypto Entrepreneurs, Darian M. Ibrahim

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies: Wall Street’S Latest Shell Game, Daniel J. Morrissey

Arkansas Law Review

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”) have been called “Wall Street’s biggest gold rush of recent years.” In reality, they are just another version of an old strategy to exploit a loophole in the federal securities laws that issuers of stock have used to avoid full registration with the SEC, the federal agency set up to administer and enforce the securities laws. The SPAC process circumvents that important protection for investors by taking private firms public through the back door—merging them into shell corporations. Those are companies whose shares are widely held but have no operations or assets.

Changemakers: 'Hard Work, Determination, And Dedication': Arya Omshehe, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

A Tokenized Future: Regulatory Lessons From Crowdfunding And Standard Form Contracts, Darian M. Ibrahim

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the world of risk investing in the cryptoeconomy. The broader crypto market is booming despite the latest downturn. People and institutions are buying in. The question is now how to regulate it.

This Article first tackles the question of whether coins, tokens, and other investable cryptoassets are securities. Second, for those cryptoassets that are not securities, this Article seeks to find a regulatory solution that balances promoting innovation with investor protection, just as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would do. To strike the right balance, this Article adopts a proposal by Ian Ayres and Alan Schwartz …

Top Ten Issues In De-Spac Securities Litigation, Wendy Gerwick Couture

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

I am delighted to contribute to this symposium on special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). The securities litigation associated with the de-SPAC transaction is at an early stage, but courts are already wrestling with a number of unsettled issues that cast a mirror on SPACs and the securities laws more broadly. As these issues are resolved, they will affect the future of de-SPAC transactions as well as the regulatory environment in which they operate. In this essay, I identify ten such issues, drawing from the pleadings, briefings, and hearings in pending de-SPAC securities cases, with the goal of highlighting the key …

Ftx: How The Sec Should React, Darian M. Ibrahim

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Attack On The Spac: The Push To Regulate Special Purpose Acquisition Companies As Investment Companies Under The Investment Company Act, Sean Meyer

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taming Unicorns, Matthew Wansley

Indiana Law Journal

Until recently, most startups that grew to become valuable businesses chose to become public companies. In the last decade, the number of unicorns—private, venture-backed startups valued over one billion dollars—has increased more than tenfold. Some of these unicorns committed misconduct that they successfully concealed for years. The difficulty of trading private company securities facilitates the concealment of misconduct. The opportunity to profit from trading a company’s securities gives short sellers, analysts, and financial journalists incentives to uncover and reveal information about misconduct the company commits. Securities regulation and standard contract provisions restrict the trading of private company securities, which undermines …

Quinquagenaries, Anthony Duggan

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article is part of a symposium to mark the 50th anniversary, or quinquagenary, of the Dalhousie Law Journal. The invitation to participate in the symposium asked authors to reflect on developments in their field over the past 50 years. My field is the law of secured transactions and, as it happens, the Canadian Personal Property Security Acts (PPSAs) are approaching their own quinquagenary. There have been numerous statutory and case law developments over the past 50 years, but one of the most remarkable turn of events is the influence the Canadian PPSAs have had on the reform of secured …

The Property Law Of Tokens, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Non-fungible tokens—or NFTs, as they are better known—have taken the world by storm. The idea behind an NFT is that by owning a certain thing (specifically, a digital token that is tracked on a blockchain), one can hold property rights in something else (either a real or intangible asset). In the early part of 2021, NFTs for items ranging from a gif of a pop-tart cat with a rainbow tail, to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, to a New York Times column (about NFTs!) have sold for millions of dollars over the internet. Promoters assert that NFTs are the …

Regulating Dynamic Risk In Changing Market Conditions, Susan Navarro Smelcer, Anne Tucker, Yusen Xia

William & Mary Business Law Review

How successful are the SEC's attempts to regulate dynamic risk in financial markets? Using mutual fund disclosure data from two financial shocks--the Puerto Rican debt crisis and COVID-19--this Article finds evidence that SEC open-ended regulations, like the obligation to disclose changing market conditions, are largely successful in capturing dynamic, future risk. Funds engage in widespread and, often, detailed disclosures for new risks--although these disclosures vary widely in specificity. But not all funds disclose new risks. This creates perverse incentives for funds to opt out of disclosure or downplay threats with boilerplate language when new risks are emerging. This Article recommends …

Why Comparability Is A Greater Problem Than Greenwashing In Esg Etfs, Ryan Clements

William & Mary Business Law Review

This Article argues that comparability in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) exchange traded funds (ETFs) is a much greater problem than greenwashing. Rising demand for sustainable investment products in recent years has been met with an explosion in ESG ETF varieties, and numerous ESG-themed funds have captured massive capital inflows. There is little evidence, however, that deceptive “greenwashing” is widespread in ETFs. ETF issuers face significant reputational costs from such behavior, and there are effectively no consumer switching costs for hyperliquid, easily accessible ETFs. While nondeceptive practices of asset managers are observable in the zero-sum, highly competitive, asset management game …

The Cryptic Nature Of Crypto Digital Assets Regulations: The Ripple Lawsuit And Why The Industry Needs Regulatory Clarity, Jacqueline Hennelly

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The tension and associated time lag between technology and regulation has been well documented. Paradigmatic of this phenomenon is the global evolution of blockchain technology and digital assets. Digital assets in the blockchain allow users to transact directly without financial intermediaries. However, the regulatory guidelines for the assets, their issuance, and the subsequent transactions are unclear. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed an action to apply its existing regulations and the judicial interpretations to Ripple’s issuance of XRP, its token, and Ripple’s control over subsequent user transactions of XRP. This Note uses SEC v. Ripple as a case …

Here To Stay: Wrestling With The Future Of The Quickly Maturing Spac Market, Matthew Diller, Rick Fleming, Stephen Fraidin, Aj Harris, Gregory F. Laufer, Mark Lebovitch, Gregg A. Noel, Hester M. Peirce, Usha R. Rodrigues, Mike Stegemoller, Verity Winship, Douglas Ellenoff

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Hidden Agendas In Shareholder Voting, Scott Hirst, Adriana Z. Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Nothing in either corporate or securities law requires companies to notify investors what they will be voting on before the record date for a shareholder meeting. We show that, overwhelmingly, they do not. The result is “hidden agendas”: for 88% of shareholder votes, investors cannot find out what they will be voting on before the record date. This poses an especially serious problem for investors who engage in securities lending: they must decide whether the expected benefit of voting exceeds the expected benefit of continuing to lend their shares (or making them available for lending) without knowing what they will …

Disclosure's Limits, Usha Rodrigues, Mike Stegemoller

Scholarly Works

Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have exploded in popularity, luring both adventurous retail investors and sophisticated institutional investors. In a SPAC, a publicly traded shell corporation acquires a private target, thereby taking it public in a manner that circumvents the rigors of a traditional initial public offering (IPO). Proponents vaunt SPACs’ ability to simplify the process of accessing the public markets and democratize capitalism, but in their current form they pose risks to retail investors and to the market as a whole. Using a hand-collected dataset, this Article fills a gap in the literature by providing new empirical data regarding …

Deterring Algorithmic Manipulation, Gina-Gail S. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Does the existing anti-manipulation framework effectively deter algorithmic manipulation? With the dual increase of algorithmic trading and the occurrence of “mini-flash crashes” in the market linked to manipulation, this question has become more pressing in recent years. In the past thirty years, the financial markets have undergone a sea change as technological advancements and innovations have fundamentally altered the structure and operation of the markets. Key to this change is the introduction and dominance of trading algorithms. Whereas initial algorithmic trading relied on preset electronic instructions to execute trading strategies, new technology is introducing artificially intelligent (“AI”) trading algorithms that …

A Lesson In Moral Hazard: Why We Should Thank Bernie Madoff, Walter E. Block, Corey Jones

Touro Law Review

Bernie Madoff is akin to the canary that miners bring to their jobs for safety. He resembles the Distant Early Warning System that was installed to protect the U.S. from attack. He has not been appreciated as such. It is time, it is past time, that he be "credited" with this important role he has played.

Grown From The Shadows: How Technology And Taxes Can Bring Private Companies Into The Public Light, Alon Sugarman

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The initial public offering (IPO) has started to make a comeback, but in forms that require less oversight and at a later point in a company’s lifecycle. These new trends cut main street investors out of early-stage corporate growth and have imperiled the fortunes and retirement funds of a generation. One of the most significant precipitating factors in this new dynamic is electronic private markets that allow sophisticated investors to trade pre-IPO shares. These electronic private markets provide liquidity to institutional investors, which relieves institutional pressure on companies to go public. The current approaches to IPO reform are primarily deregulatory, …

Regulation Of Securities Offerings In California: Is It Time For A Change After A Century Of Merit Regulation?, Neal H. Brockmeyer

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The California securities law originated in 1913 from a populist movement that embodied a paternalistic attitude toward the protection of investors. It was characterized by the registration of offerings of securities with few exemptions and exclusions, a qualitative review of the merits of those offerings and an administrator with broad authority to implement and enforce the law. While the California securities law is still based on merit review, exclusions and exemptions have been added and expanded over the years by the California legislature and securities regulators. More recently, Congress has preempted state registration and merit review of various securities and …

Congressional Securities Trading, Gregory Shill

Indiana Law Journal

The trading of stocks and bonds by Members of Congress presents several risks that warrant public concern. One is the potential for policy distortion: lawmakers' personal investments may influence their official acts. Another is a special case of a general problem: that of insiders exploiting access to confidential information for personal gain. In each case, the current framework which is based on common law fiduciary principles is a poor fit. Surprisingly, rules from a related context have been overlooked.

Like lawmakers, public company insiders such as CEOs frequently trade securities while in possession of confidential information. Those insiders' trades are …

Insider Trading Framework In United States And Egyptian Stock Markets, Elsayed Eldaydamony

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article examines the law of insider trading in both the American and Egyptian legal systems. It seeks to pinpoint the policy rationale behind prohibiting insider trading, the theories of civil enforcement and criminalization, and the concept of tipping in the United States. It also analyzes the express statutory prohibition under Egyptian law. Furthermore, it explains the doctrinal link between securities fraud and insider trading in the U.S. as well as the enforcement mechanisms in place at the SEC, the NYSE, and the NASDAQ. It also surveys the surveillance authority of the Egyptian Financial Regularity Authority and of the Egyptian …

High Crimes: Liability For Directors Of Retail Marijuana Corporations, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty.

What is certain is that more companies are being formed …

Halliburton Ii At Four: Has It Changed The Outcome Of Class Certification Decisions?, Noah Weingarten

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., 573 U.S. 258 (2014) (Halliburton II) appeared to give corporate defendants a new tool to defeat class certification in the context of securities fraud class action litigation: rebutting the requisite presumption of reliance by showing a lack of "price impact"-a term that Halliburton II used to describe whether the price of an allegedly affected company's stock went up or down. However, based on an empirical study of pre- versus post-Halliburton II class certification decisions, it appears that the outcomes of class certification decisions have become even …

Global Investor Protection: Securities Law Enforcement Around The World, Matthew Diller, Martin Gelter, Eugenio J. Cardenas, Merritt B. Fox, Geoffrey Jarvis, Pierre-Henri Conac, Todd Cosenza, Jill Fisch, Yuliya Guseva, Elad Roisman, Sean Griffith

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Crowdfunding Issuers In The United States, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Startup companies can now legally sell shares of stock, bonds, or other securities to the broad public using equity crowdfunding, a new type of online capital market modeled on Kickstarter and other reward crowdfunding websites. Through equity crowdfunding, entrepreneurs can go directly to the broad public (the “crowd”) for investment, without having to go through the usual (and costly) process of an initial public offering (IPO). Equity crowdfunding thus offers a chance for all entrepreneurs, regardless of their physical location, gender, or anything else, to solicit investors and raise capital.

In 2012, new federal legislation—the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) …