Law Commons^™

Laying Down The "Brics": Enhancing The Portability Of Awards In International Commercial Arbitration, Benjamin C. Mccarty

Benjamin C McCarty

The drafters of the 1958 New York Convention intended Article V(2)(b) to be interpreted narrowly, and while most pro-arbitration national courts do maintain narrowly defined areas of public policy that are sufficient for refusal of the recognition and enforcement of a foreign arbitral award, this is not always the case. Developing states and jurisdictions that maintain corrupt or inefficient judicial systems have shown a greater willingness to invoke the public policy exception for a broader, amorphous variety of reasons. This phenomenon has created a sense of unpredictability among international investors, arbitrators, and business executives as to the amount of deference …

Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

In this work, I discuss the tension between gift and market economy throughout the history of creativity. For millennia, the production of creative artifacts has lain at the intersection between gift and market economy. From the time of Pindar and Simonides – and until the Romanticism will commence a process leading to the complete commodification of creative artifacts – market exchange models run parallel to gift exchange. From Roman amicitia to the medieval and Renaissance belief that “scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest,” creativity has been repeatedly construed as a gift. Again, at the time of the British …

The Law And Economics Of Consumer Debt Collection And Its Regulation, Todd J. Zywicki

Todd J. Zywicki

This article reviews the law and economics of consumer debt collection and its regulation a topic that has taken on added urgency in light of the announcement by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that it is considering new regulations on the subject. Although stricter regulation of permissible debt collection practices can benefit those consumers who are in default and increase demand for credit by consumers, overly-restrictive regulation will result in higher interest rates and less access to credit for consumers, especially higher-risk consumers. Regulation of particular practices may also have the unintended consequence of providing incentives for creditors to more …

An Approach To The Regulation Of Spanish Banking Foundations, Miguel Martínez

Miguel Martínez

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the legal framework governing banking foundations as they have been regulated by Spanish Act 26/2013, of December 27th, on savings banks and banking foundations. Title 2 of this regulation addresses a construct that is groundbreaking for the Spanish legal system, still of paramount importance for the entire financial system insofar as these foundations become the leading players behind certain banking institutions given the high interest that foundations hold in the share capital of such institutions.

The World’S Laboratory: China’S Patent Boom, It Standards And The Implications For The Global Knowledge, Christopher Mcelwain, Dennis Fernandez

Christopher McElwain

Just as China’s factories disrupted the economics of IT hardware, its research labs have the potential to disrupt the economics of the technology itself. In 2014, China’s patent office received nearly 2.4 million patent applications, 93% from domestic applicants. China has also climbed to third place in terms of international applications, with over 21,000 WIPO PCT applications. Meanwhile, China has taken an assertive role in setting technology standards, both at the national and international levels. In the past, this has included developing and promoting alternatives to important IT standards as a means of challenging perceived monopolies by certain (foreign-dominated) technologies. …

Through The Lens Of Innovation, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Mirit Eyal-Cohen

The legal system constantly follows the footsteps of innovation and attempts to discourage its migration overseas. Yet, present legal rules that inform and explain entrepreneurial circumstances lack a core understanding of the concept of innovation. By its nature, law imposes order. It provides rules, remedies, and classifications that direct behavior in a consistent manner. Innovation turns on the contrary. It entails making creative judgments about the unknown. It involves adapting to disarray. It thrives on deviations as opposed to traditional causation. This Article argues that these differences matter. It demonstrates that current laws lock entrepreneurs into inefficient legal routes. Using …

Lessons In Fiscal Activism, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Mirit Eyal-Cohen

This article highlights an anomaly. It shows that two tax rules aimed to achieve a similar goal were introduced at the same time. Both meant to be temporary and bring economic stimuli but received a dramatically different treatment. The economically inferior rule survived while its superior counterpart did not. The article reviews the reasons for this paradox. It shows that the causes are both political and an agency problem. The article not only enriches an important and ongoing debate that has received much attention in recent years, but also provides important lessons to policymakers.

The Family Llc: A New Approach To Insuring Dynastic Wealth, Evan M. Purcell

Evan M Purcell

No abstract provided.

How Local Is Local?: A Response To Professor David B. Spence's The Political Economy Of Local Vetoes, Joshua P. Fershee

Joshua P Fershee

Professor Fershee responds to Professor David B. Spence’s article about local hydraulic fracturing bans: The Political Economy of Local Vetoes, 93 Texas L. Rev. 351 (2015). Professor Spence notes that the shale oil and gas debate provides an example of “an age-old political problem that the law is called upon to solve: the conflict between an intensely held minority viewpoint and a less intense, contrary view held by the majority.” In resolving such conflicts, Spence suggests that courts should resolve such “conflicts in ways that encourage states and local governments to regulate in ways that weigh both the costs and …

The Cost Of Confusion: The Paradox Of Trademarked Pharmaceuticals, Hannah W. Brennan

Hannah W Brennan

The United States spends nearly $1,000 per person annually on drugs—40 percent more than the next highest spender, Canada, and more than twice the amount France and Germany spend. Although myriad factors contribute to high drug spending in the United States, the crucial role that intellectual property laws play in inhibiting access to cheaper, generic medications is among one of the best documented. Yet, for the most part, the discussion of the relationship between intellectual property law and drug spending has centered on patent protection. Recently, however, a few researchers have turned their attention to a different exclusivity—trademark law. New …

Optimized Theft: Why Some Controlling Shareholders “Generously” Expropriate From Minority Shareholders, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, many questions still remain unanswered. In particular, an important puzzle in a bad-law jurisdiction is: why some controlling shareholders (“roving controllers”) loot the entire corporate assets at once, and why others (“stationary controllers”) siphon a part of corporate assets on a continuous basis. To solve this conundrum, this Article provides analytical frameworks exploring the behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. To begin with, I reinterpret Olson’s political theory of “banditry” in the context of corporate governance in developing countries. Based on a new taxonomy of controlling shareholders (“roving controllers” …

Internal Revenue Service Acknowledges Involvement In Jenkins Related Judicial Martial Law Activities, David Randall Jenkins

David Randall Jenkins

Jenkins applied to the Internal Revenue Service as the responsible party for his firm, Algorithm LLC, to become an IRS authorized e-­‐‑file provider. Prior to its e-­‐‑file provider application response, the agency had approved Algorithm LLC (RDAWB) as a continuing education provider based on Jenkins’ academic credentials. On May 22, 2015, however, the Internal Revenue Service responded to the Algorithm LLC e-­‐‑file provider application by rejecting it. The basis for the rejection was the Federal Bureau of Investigation report on Jenkins’ criminal background.On June 3, 2015, Jenkins filed a timely appeal of the IRS May 22, 2015 rejection of the …

What’S The Matter With Welfare Economics?, Richard S. Markovits

Richard S. Markovits

Welfare Economics is the branch of economics that focuses on economic efficiency. In my judgment, Welfare Economics and its applied sub-fields such as Environmental Economics and Public Finance are the branches of economics that are most relevant to legal practitioners and academics. This Article criticizes (1) the ways in which welfare economists define the field’s central concept—the impact of a non-government or government choice (or natural event) or set of Pareto imperfections on economic efficiency, (2) the protocol welfare economists use to predict or post-dict the impact of any choice or set of Pareto imperfections on economic efficiency, (3) the …

Free Markets: What, Why, When, Why Not, And What To Do About It, Richard S. Markovits

Richard S. Markovits

This Article analyzes the politically-salient claim that “free market systems of resource allocation” will produce optimal social outcomes in that pure “free market” resource-allocation systems will either maximize economic efficiency or be more economically efficient than any alternative system would be and will generate a morally-optimal distribution of income by causing people to be paid “what they produce.” The Article begins by pointing out that, contrary to the claims of its supporters, any “free market” system of resource allocation presupposes a great deal of government regulation to define and protect the private property-rights that are such systems’ foundation. The Article …

"Renounce And Enjoy": The Pursuit Of Happiness Through Gandhi's Simple Living And High Thinking, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2

I. SIMPLICITY AND NON-HARM BOTH ARISE FROM AN INTENSE IDENTIFICATION WITH ALL THINGS 2

II. CONSUMPTION AND ITS DISCONTENTS 8

III. HAPPINESS AS A GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT 14

Re-Envisioning Investors’ Anti-Director Rights Index: Theory, Criticism, And Implications, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

‘Law and Finance’ theory – which offers analytical frameworks to measure the protection of public investors and the quality of corporate governance – has dominated the comparative corporate governance scholarship in the last decade. So far, many proponents and critics have had debates on the relevance of the theory and the implications of the theory’s empirical studies. Several important points in relation to shareholder protection, however, have been highly neglected in these debates. In particular, the significance of one-share-one-vote (OSOV) rule has been inappropriately underestimated. In response, this Article explores (1) why OSOV is an utmost critical component in corporate …

Efficient Contextualism, Juliet P. Kostritsky, Peter M. Gerhart

Juliet P Kostritsky

This Article recommends an economic methodology of contract interpretation that enables the court to maximize the benefits of exchange for the parties and thereby enhance the institution of contracting. We recommend a methodology that asks the parties to identify the determinants of a surplus maximizing interpretation so that the court can determine whether the determinants raise issues that need to be tried. We thus avoid the false choice between textualist and contextualist methodologies, while allowing the parties and the court to avoid costly litigation. For textualist courts, our methodology helps the judge determine when the terms the parties used are …

Money From Syar’Iah Perspective, Anowar Zahid

Anowar Zahid

In history, paper money systems have always wound up with collapse and economic chaos. Today, the usage of fiat currency, a form of paper money and the correlate bank money has brought about wide spread hardships and sufferings upon many sectors of society and communities. Following in depth syari’ah analysis, the only conclusion that is possible is that fiat currency and bank money are illegal. They are, in reality, introduced through manipulative collaborations between governments and bank cartels, as they defy the long established sanction against riba’ (usury), operate at the advantage of a selected group in society to the …

The Origins Of Affirmative Fiscal Action, Mirit Eyal-Cohen

Mirit Eyal-Cohen

This article highlights an anomaly. It shows that two tax rules aimed to achieve a similar goal were introduced at the same time. Both meant to be temporary and bring economic stimuli, but received a dramatically different treatment. The less efficient or economically inferior survived. Its superior counterpart did not. The article reviews the reasons for this paradox. It shows that the reason is both political and an agency problem. The article not only enriches an important and ongoing debate that has received much attention in recent years, but also provides important lessons to policymakers.

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

Short-Circuiting Contract Law: The Federal Circuit's Contract Law Jurisprudence And Intellectual Property Federalism, Shubha Ghosh

Shubha Ghosh

The Federal Circuit was established in 1982 as an appellate court with limited jurisdiction over patent claims. However, the Federal Circuit has used this limited jurisdiction to expand its reach into contract law, developing a federal common law of contract. Given the growing importance of patent litigation in the past three decades, this creation of an independent body of contract law creates uncertainty in transactions involving patents. This troublesome development received attention in Stanford v Roche, a 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the Federal Circuit's invalidation of a patent assignment to Stanford University. This Article documents the development of …

The New Leadership Paradigm In Today’S Financial System: Foreign And Domestic Banking, Valencia Tamir Johnson Dr

Valencia T Johnson

This article discusses the important of new leadership paradigm in today’s financial system and the importance the growth of foreign banking and investment in the United States and abroad. The article provides approaches that would inspire and develop effective leadership within financial organizations (foreign and domestic banking activities among investments, competitiveness, and improving the financial industry).

Exhibit A-April 21, 2014 Dol Letter To Modes, David Randall Jenkins

David Randall Jenkins

This exhibit evidences the Obama administration's pressure on the Missouri legislature not to bring its unemployment act into compliance with the FUTA provisions.

Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Unfair self-dealing and expropriation of minority shareholders by a controlling shareholder are common business practices in developing countries (“bad-law countries”). Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, there are many questions unanswered in relation to behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. For example, a puzzle is that some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries voluntarily extract minority shareholders less than other controlling shareholders. Applying Mancur Olson’s framework of political theory of “banditry” to the context of corporate governance, this Article proposes that there are at least two categories of controlling shareholders. “Roving controllers” are dominant shareholders with …

Boilerplate Shock, Gregory Shill

Gregory Shill

No nation was spared in the recent global downturn, but several countries in the Eurozone arguably took the hardest punch, and they are still down. Doubts about the solvency of Greece, Spain, and a number of their neighbors are increasing the likelihood of a breakup of the common European currency. Observers believe a single departure and sovereign debt default might set off a “bank run” on the euro, with devastating regional and global consequences.

What mechanisms are available to address—or ideally, to prevent—such a disaster?

One unlikely candidate is boilerplate language in the contracts that govern Eurozone sovereign bonds. As …

Lessons From Metaethics, Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral Psychology, And Behavioral Economics: The Use Of Ethical Intuition In Legal Compliance For Business Entities, Eric C. Chaffee

Eric C. Chaffee

This article challenges the widely held view in legal education and in practice that what lawyers should be doing in providing legal advice consists solely of engaging in legal research and analytic reasoning. This article suggests that ethical intuition—i.e., the unconscious recognition that a specific action is good, evil, or morally neutral—may have a useful role to play in making legal compliance decisions for business entities.

Although largely ignored by the legal academy, scholars in numerous disciplines have acknowledged the role that intuition plays in decision making. Philosophers and religious scholars initially recognized role of intuition in moral decision making …

Too Complex To Perceive?: Drafting Cash Distribution Waterfalls Directly As Code To Reduce Complexity And Legal Risk In Structured Finance, Master Limited Partnership, And Private Equity Transactions, Ralph Carter Mayrell

Ralph Carter Mayrell

The intricate procedural and data-driven decision trees that play a critical role in complex financial contracts like cash distribution waterfalls in structured finance agreement indentures (e.g., collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)), master limited partnership agreements, and private equity fund agreements are inefficiently depicted as written contracts. As Professor Henry Hu explains in Too Complex to Depict?, the difficulty of translation—or depiction—between original mathematical models, plain English prospectuses, legal contracts, and programmed execution means that often the written depictions that form the basis of disclosures do not accurately define the act of execution. To overcome this, the SEC proposed an amendment to …

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Now over 36 years old, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. Over the past thirty-six years NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership …

A Theory Without A Movement, A Hope Without A Name: The Future Of Marxism In A Post-Marxist World, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Just as Marx's insights into capitalism have been most strikingly vindicated by the rise of neoliberalism and the near-collapse of the world economy, Marxism as social movement has become bereft of support. Is there any point in people who find Marx's analysis useful in clinging to the term "Marxism" - which Marx himself rejected -- at time when self-identified Marxist organizations and societies have collapsed or renounced the identification, and Marxism own working class constituency rejects the term? I set aside bad reasons to give on "Marxism," such as that the theory is purportedly refuted, that its adoption leads necessarily …