Law Commons^™

Securities Law's Dirty Little Secret, Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

Securities law’s dirty little secret is that rich investors have access to special kinds of investments—hedge funds, private equity, private companies—that everyone else does not. This disparity stems from the fact that, from its inception, federal securities law has jealously guarded the manner in which firms can sell shares to the general public. Perhaps paternalistically, the law assumes that the average investor needs the protection of the full panoply of securities regulation and thus should be limited to buying public securities. In contrast, accredited—i.e., wealthy— investors, who it is presumed can fend for themselves, have the luxury of choosing between …

Crowdfunding Securities, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

A new federal statute authorizes the online "crowdfunding" of securities, a new idea based on the concept of "reward" crowdfunding practiced on Kickstarter and other websites. This method of selling securities had previously been banned by federal securities law but the new CROWDFUND Act overturns that prohibition.

This Article introduces the CROWDFUND Act and explains that it can be expected to have two primary effects on securities law and capital markets. First, it will liberate startup companies to use peer networks and the Internet to obtain modest amounts of capital at low cost. Second, it will help democratize the market …

Rural Crowdfunding, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

One reason that economic development in rural America lags behind its urban counterpart is the persistent lack of venture capital for rural entrepreneurs. Geography deserves much of the blame, as angel investors and venture capitalists tend to live and work in metropolitan areas on the coasts, in places like Silicon Valley and Boston. Many rural areas are literally thousands of miles away, with the result that venture capital has rarely found its way to rural regions.

Recent federal legislation, however, has the potential to change this dynamic. The JOBS Act authorizes the sale of securities over the Internet to large …