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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Une Anticommons: Why The 1996 Telecom Reforms Blocked Innovation And Investment, Michael A. Heller
The Une Anticommons: Why The 1996 Telecom Reforms Blocked Innovation And Investment, Michael A. Heller
Faculty Scholarship
The United States is losing its competitive edge in telecommunications partly because of FCC mistakes in fragmenting property rights in, and in the regulatory oversight of local telephone facilities and services. As with postsocialist transition, reformers created a "tragedy of the anticommons" in which too many owners and regulators each can block the others' investments and all players forego innovation. By forcing existing companies to unbundle network elements (UNEs) and sell them too cheaply, the FCC has created an industry where the players cannibalize the legacy network, divert resources to regulatory arbitrage, and have little incentive for bold new investments.
Wrongs Of Ignorance And Ambiguity: Lawyer Responsibility For Collective Misconduct, William H. Simon
Wrongs Of Ignorance And Ambiguity: Lawyer Responsibility For Collective Misconduct, William H. Simon
Faculty Scholarship
Deliberate ignorance and calculated ambiguity are key recurring themes in modern scandals from Watergate to Enron. Actors, especially lawyers, seek to limit responsibility by avoiding knowledge and clear articulation. This essay considers this phenomenon from the point of view of both business organization and legal doctrine. Evasive ignorance and ambiguity seem endemic to a particular organizational model and to a traditional model of legal responsibility. Developments in both law and business, however, suggest that these models are being superceded. Many of the most dynamic businesses now emphasize practices of "transparency" designed to inhibit evasive ignorance and calculated ambiguity. A major …
Derivatives And The Bankruptcy Code: Why The Special Treatment?, Franklin R. Edwards, Edward R. Morrison
Derivatives And The Bankruptcy Code: Why The Special Treatment?, Franklin R. Edwards, Edward R. Morrison
Faculty Scholarship
The collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) in Fall 1998 and the Federal Reserve Bank's subsequent efforts to orchestrate a bailout raise important questions about the structure of the Bankruptcy Code. The Code contains numerous provisions affording special treatment to financial derivatives contracts, the most important of which exempts these contracts from the "automatic stay" and permits counterparties to terminate derivatives contracts with a debtor in bankruptcy and seize underlying collateral. No other counterparty or creditor of the debtor has such freedom; to the contrary, the automatic stay prohibits them from undertaking any act that threatens the debtor's assets. …