Law Commons^™

Renters Evicted En Masse: Collateral Damage Arising From The Subprime Foreclosure Crisis, Creola Johnson

Creola Johnson

ABSTRACT: America is experiencing its worst foreclosure crisis in history, and tenants are the silent victims of this crisis. In this Article, Professor Johnson describes the consequences of thousands of tenants of being evicted from residential properties obtained by lenders in foreclosure proceedings against the owners-landlords. The individual consequences include tenants’ renting substandard alternative housing, experiencing disruptions in family life, and even becoming homeless. Societal consequences include the costs imposed upon communities to provide social services to the evicted tenants and their families and the burden on cities in dealing with homes left vacant due to the lenders' inability to …

The Credit Repair Organizations Act: The Sleeping Giant, Justin Smith

Justin T Smith

Congress created the Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) to protect consumers from unscrupulous providers of credit repair. In the fifteen years since it was enacted, problems have arisen in its application as many of the key provisions of CROA were left undefined and what little case law that has developed has yet to form a coherent understanding of how CROA is to be read. This lack of predictability makes CROA an ineffective piece of legislation in that parties are unable to properly modify their behavior since they are not operating on known terms.

Just as CROA has been neglected by …

Consumer Use And Government Regulation Of Title Pledge Lending, Todd J. Zywicki

Todd J. Zywicki

Recent years have seen growth in the use of certain types of nontraditional lending products, such as payday lending and auto title lending, and a relative decline of others, such as finance companies and pawnbrokers. Congress is currently considering major new regulations on short-term lending products, such as title lending, that could produce their demise—even though there is no evidence that such products were related in any way to the financial crisis.

This study examines the question of who uses title pledge lending and why. The results are surprising. I find that title pledge lending is used predominantly by three …

Credit Bidding And The Design Of Bankruptcy Auctions, Vincent S. J. Buccola, Ashley C. Keller

Vincent S. J. Buccola

Now that most chapter 11 “reorganizations” are glorified asset sales in which the debtor uses bankruptcy to prepare itself for auction, the design of sale procedures has become a paramount concern to bankruptcy practitioners and courts. Among the choices they face is whether — and if so, how — to permit credit bidding, the practice of offsetting the value of a creditor’s claim against the purchase price of the debtor’s assets. This paper shows that credit bidding tends to augment, and cannot depress, total creditor recoveries, and we therefore conclude that it should be a mandatory feature of bankruptcy auctions. …

Distorting Legal Principles, Steven L. Schwarcz

Steven L Schwarcz

This article explores the important but until now largely neglected problem of distorting legal principles. Although legal principles enable society to order itself by preserving broadly based expectations, parties sometimes transact in ways that are so inconsistent with accepted principles as to create uncertainty or confusion that undermines the basis for reasoning afforded by the principles. The article starts by examining a fundamental distortion of the nemo dat legal principle (one cannot give what one does not have), which was a trigger of Lehman Brothers’ recent downfall. A practice called “rehypothecation” so distorted nemo dat that Lehman’s customers were uncertain …

Fairness, Utility, And Market Risk, Jeff Schwartz

Jeff Schwartz

In this Article, I argue that we lack a satisfactory theory about how disclosure, the centerpiece of securities regulation, serves investor interests. To close this gap, I contend that the regulations should be viewed as part of a broader societal framework that protects individuals from stock-market risk. I flesh out this notion in three ways. First, I set out to justify protection from market risk as a valid societal goal. To do so, I appeal to Rawlsian and utilitarian notions of justice. These moral theories contain the principle that a just society helps individuals manage risk. I argue that this …

Underwater And Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear And The Social Management Of The Housing Crisis, Brent T. White

Brent T. White

Despite reports that homeowners are increasingly “walking away” from their mortgages, most homeowners continue to make their payments even when they are significantly underwater. This article suggests that most homeowners choose not to strategically default as a result of two emotional forces: 1) the desire to avoid the shame and guilt of foreclosure; and 2) exaggerated anxiety over foreclosure’s perceived consequences. Moreover, these emotional constraints are actively cultivated by the government and other social control agents in order to encourage homeowners to follow social and moral norms related to the honoring of financial obligations - and to ignore market and …

Regulatory Failures In The Design Of Securities Settlement Infrastructure, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Nearly all transactions in listed securities on the US capital markets are settled through a securities settlement infrastructure that generates extensive negative externalities for issuers and securityholders. This model is still advocated by regulators and market structure experts; it is an intermediated structure originally designed for depositing paper certificates in the accounts of a depository to allow book entry transfers of claims on the deposited certificates. The structure dates back at least to 1873. It accelerates transfer by short circuiting "endorsement", "delivery" and "cancellation" of certificates, as all securities are and remain registered in the name of a single entity …

The Roles Of Acceleration, David Hahn

David Hahn

Acceleration clauses are found in most debt instruments. Upon the occurrence of predetermined triggering event, acceleration makes a creditor's future claim due and payable. While debt covenants have been analyzed extensively in the academic literature, the role of acceleration has been overlooked. This paper examines the role of acceleration clauses and maintains that they play a critical role in debt financing. The paper argues that the prime role of acceleration is to perfect a complex set of governance mechanisms within the corporate setting. This governance role is comprised of three parts. First, acceleration is a complementary measure that supports debt …

Designing Bankruptcy Auctions: The Indubitable Value Of Credit Bidding, Vincent S. J. Buccola, Ashley C. Keller

Vincent S. J. Buccola

Now that most chapter 11 “reorganizations” are glorified asset sales in which the debtor uses bankruptcy to prepare itself for auction, the design of sale procedures has become a paramount concern to bankruptcy practitioners and courts. Among the choices they face is whether — and if so, how — to permit credit bidding, the practice of offsetting the value of a creditor’s claim against the purchase price of the debtor’s assets. This paper shows that credit bidding tends to augment, and cannot depress, total creditor recoveries, and we therefore conclude that it should be a mandatory feature of bankruptcy auctions. …

Corporate Risks, Risk Bearing Ability And Equity, Lukas C. Handschin

Lukas C Handschin

There is a relation between corporate risks, risk bearing ability and equity. In order to assess the risk bearing ability of a corporation, one reference figure is equity, understood as the sum of legal capital and reserves, free reserves and accrued profits. Equity shows the risk bearing ability related to the risk of asset reduction as well as the ability of the corporation to attract new liquidity by increasing debts, in case of a negative free cash flow. Equity is the risk reserve of the corporation. The relation between equity and risk bearing ability allows defining the necessary amount of …

On Systemically Important Financial Institutions And Progressive Systemic Mitigation, James B. Thomson

James Thomson

One of the most important issues in the regulatory reform debate is that of systemically important financial institutions. This paper proposes a framework for identifying and supervising such institutions; the framework is designed to remove the advantages they derive from becoming systemically important and to give them more time-consistent incentives. It defines the four C’s of systemic importance (contagion, concentration, correlation, and conditions) as criteria for classifying firms as systemically important that goes beyond binary classification based on size alone (the classic doctrine of too big to let fail); it also discusses the concept of progressive systemic mitigation.

Financial Regulatory Reformation In South Korea And Experience Of The Consolidated Regulatory System, Jeongdoo Lee

Jeongdoo Lee

One significant recommendation for the U.S. financial reformation is the consolidation of regulatory system, which South Korea adopted after the Asian financial crisis. This paper briefly reflects the causes of the Korean financial crisis from the points of financial regulation, and explains the process of reformation and experiences of Korean consolidated system including some modifications after the initial reformation. In addition, this paper evaluates the Korean regulatory system with general standards and needs for changes in the backgrounds of various economic and political surroundings. Although there can be general requisites for desirable regulatory system, the reason for the change itself …

The Case For "Cramdown": Eliminating The Practical And Ideological Barriers To Pure Mortgage Modification, Peter J. Leo

Peter J Leo

This article was prepared for a seminar in Consumer Protection. The article makes the case that Congress should modify the Bankruptcy Code to allow for judicial modification of home mortgages on a bankrupt’s principal residence as a means of combating the foreclosure crisis. The article examines two different proposals originally published in the Minnesota Law Review and the Yale Journal on Regulation, examines some of the deficiencies in those proposals, and concludes that “cramdown” will be a more effective means of keeping consumers in their homes.

Student Loans In Bankruptcy: The Undue Hardship Test Is An Unnecessary Burden, James M. Leiby

James M Leiby

No abstract provided.

An End To Too Big To Let Fail? The Dodd–Frank Act’S Orderly Liquidation Authority, Thomas J. Fitzpatrick Iv, James B. Thomson

James Thomson

One of the changes introduced by the sweeping new fi nancial market legislation of the Dodd–Frank Act is the provision of a formal process for liquidating large fi nancial fi rms—something that would have been useful in 2008, when troubles at Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Merrill Lynch threatened to damage the entire U.S. fi nancial system. While it may not be the end of the too-big-to-fail problem, the orderly liquidation authority is an important new tool in the regulatory toolkit. It will enable regulators to safely close and wind up the affairs of those distressed fi nancial fi rms whose …

Breaking Bucks: Sec Regulation By Obfuscation, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first and most significant response to the economic crisis profoundly contradicts widely accepted theoretical and regulatory approaches to financial oversight. More alarmingly, the SEC’s newest rules increase rather than decrease the likelihood of future failures in money market funds and the broader capital markets.

Scholars – of both neoclassical and behavioral economic theory – have long insisted that transparency and disclosure play essential roles in ensuring efficient capital markets and sound financial regulation. Professors Gilson and Kraakman notably argued that the efficient capital market hypothesis, and its reliance on a market …

Case Management And Online Public Access Systems Of The Courts – An Urgent Call Of Legislative Action P 2, Joseph Zernik

Joseph Zernik

Digital voting machines were previously shown to be vulnerable to malfunction and malfeasance. Papers, recently published in computer science journal, likewise, outlined the invalidity of digital case management and online public access systems that govern the courts, jails, and prisons in the United States, and documented large-scale abuse of such systems. Invalid case management and online public access systems were claimed as key to deterioration of integrity of the justice system, which was previously opined in official, expert, and media reports. Such systems enabled the holding of prisoners under pretense of lawfulness, the conduct of pretense court proceedings, and the …

Case Management And Online Public Access Systems Of The Courts – An Urgent Call Of Legislative Action, Joseph Zernik

Joseph Zernik

Digital voting machines were previously shown to be vulnerable to malfunction and malfeasance. Papers, recently published in computer science journal, likewise, outlined the invalidity of digital case management and online public access systems that govern the courts, jails, and prisons in the United States, and documented large-scale abuse of such systems. Invalid case management and online public access systems were claimed as key to deterioration of integrity of the justice system, which was previously opined in official, expert, and media reports. Such systems enabled the holding of prisoners under pretense of lawfulness, the conduct of pretense court proceedings, and the …

Befuddlement Betwixt Two Fulcrums: Calibrating The Scales Of Justice To Ascertain Fraudulent Transfers In Leveraged Buyouts, John H. Ginsberg, M. Katie Burgess, Zachary R. Caldwell, Daniel R. Czerwonka

John H. Ginsberg

In a leveraged buyout, a company goes deep into debt and grants liens on its assets to finance the purchase of itself. The company’s risk of insolvency increases with its debt burden. Unsecured creditors of the company are exposed to insolvency risk without compensation, unlike the parties to the leveraged buyout—buyer, seller and lender—all of whom expect good returns on the lesser risks to which they are exposed. When a leveraged buyout leaves the acquired company with “unreasonably small capital” such that insolvency is “reasonably foreseeable” upon consummation of the buyout, unsecured creditors may have recourse to constructive-fraudulent-transfer law. They …

Energy-Efficiency And Wind Energy: Investment Strategy For Venture Capital And Private Equity, Nicolas L. Boittin

Nicolas L Boittin

Some renewable sources of energy are becoming economically profitable and legislatures are providing greater legal predictability for investment in this area. Many states have implemented Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) and the U.S. Congress extended the investment period for Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) recently. Wind energy is the most mature renewable technology and energy-efficiency offers high profit potential in the short term. These two areas thus provide great investment opportunities for venture capital funds interested in clean technology and private equity funds focusing in renewable energy buyouts.

Negligent Insider Trading: A Viable Theory Of Civil Liability?, Steven Brody

Steven Brody

A flurry of civil suits by the SEC and private parties has followed on the heels of the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Many of these actions raise theories of liability that are still developing in the area of white collar crime and securities fraud. As the SEC and private parties seek to explore new theories under which to bring suit, this article briefly addresses one as-yet unexplored avenue that many academic authorities have alluded to as possible under Section 17 of the Securities Act of 1933: that of “negligent insider trading.” While such a theory has yet to …

Leveraged Buyout Bankruptcies, The Problem Of Hindsight Bias, And The Credit Default Swap Solution, Michael N. Simkovic, Benjamin S. Kaminetzky

Michael N Simkovic

No abstract provided.

Landlords Of Last Resort: Should The Government Subsidize The Mortgages Of Privately-Owned, Small Multifamily Buildings?, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

The absence of stable financing options has long caused difficulties for owners of small multifamily buildings. Despite the ongoing maturation of a secondary mortgage market for small multifamily mortgages, this housing stock continues to shrink due to abandonment, demolition, foreclosure and other causes. As these buildings house many low-income households, some have suggested subsidizing the financing costs for the owners of these buildings. Any proposal to subsidize these landlords to meet affordable housing goals, however, should be predicated on determinations that (i) it is an efficient means to provide housing to the neediest tenants and (ii) the multifamily mortgage market …

Book Review: Dan Immergluck, Foreclosed: High-Risk Lending, Deregulation, And The Undermining Of America’S Mortgage Market, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

This is a book review of Dan Immergluck, FORECLOSED: HIGH-RISK LENDING, DEREGULATION, AND THE UNDERMINING OF AMERICA’S MORTGAGE MARKET (Cornell University Press 2009).

Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac: Creatures Of Regulatory Privilege, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

This book chapter addresses the appropriate role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-chartered, privately owned mortgage finance companies, in the United States housing finance sector. The federal government recently placed Fannie and Freddie in conservatorship. These two massive companies are profit-driven, but as government-sponsored enterprises they also have a government-mandated mission to provide liquidity and stability to the United States mortgage market and to achieve certain affordable housing goals. How the two companies should exit their conservatorship has implications that reach throughout the global financial markets and are of key importance to the future of American housing finance …

Problems And Reforms In Mortgage-Backed Securities: Handicapping The Credit Rating Agencies, Franz P. Hosp

Franz P Hosp V

Here we go again - another financial mess with credit rating agencies in the cross hairs. This is nothing new. Over the last four decades, credit rating agencies have been associated with several major financial disasters: the bankruptcy of Penn Central Transportation Company in 1970, the bankruptcy of Orange County in 1994, the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990's, the bankruptcy of Enron in 2001, and the bankruptcy of WorldCom in 2002.

Currently, the United States is suffering from an economic crisis precipitated largely by the deterioration of mortgage-backed securities. The process of securitizing mortgages is complex and involves …