Law Commons^™

Stoneridge V. Scientific-Atlanta: Do Section 10(B) And Rule 10b-5 Require A Misstatement Or Omission? (Pre-Publication Draft), Rodney D. Chrisman

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This version is a draft submitted for publication and accepted prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling. The final version, published by QLR and also posted on Digital Commons, was modified subsequently to the Supreme Court ruling. Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta promises to be the most important securities litigation case to reach the Supreme Court since Central Bank of Denver. In this important case, Stoneridge presents the Supreme Court with the opportunity to clarify the application of its ruling in Central Bank to liability for secondary actors under section 10(b) and rule 10b-5. This Article points out that the fundamental question plaguing …

Mtic (Carousel) Fraud: Twelve Ways Forward; Two Ways 'Preferred' - Has The Technology-Based Administrative Solution Been Rejected?, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In a May 31, 2006 Communication to the Council, the European Parliament, and the European Economic and Social Committee, the European Commission indicated a need to develop a co-ordinated strategy to improve the fight against fiscal fraud [COM(2006) 254 final]. Although the Communication considers fiscal fraud broadly (VAT, excise duties and direct taxes) the most pressing need seems to be for a VAT strategy that will effectively deal with MTIC (Missing Trader Intra-Community) or carousel fraud. To this end the Commission hosted a conference: Fiscal Fraud - Tackling VAT Fraud: Possible Ways Forward. The March 29, 2007 conference was constructed …

Raising The Hue And Crying: Do False Claims Act Qui Tam Relators Act Under Color Of Federal Law?, Isaac B. Rosenberg

W&M Law Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Hybrid Class Actions, Dual Certification, And Wage Law Enforcement In The Federal Courts, Andrew Brunsden

Articles & Chapters

Hybrid wage-and-hour class actions, which combine a Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA ') opt-in collective action and a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 23 opt-out class action in a single civil action, demonstrate the unusual interplay of opt-in and opt-out rules. The hybrid class action, and its viability as a mechanism for wage law enforcement, raises fundamental questions as to who participates in lawsuits, how we should hold employers accountable for wage-and-hour noncompliance, and the role of the federal courts in enforcing public rights. An opt-in rule tends to produce low participation rates, while an opt-out rule tends to …

Sentencing High-Loss Corporate Insider Frauds After Booker, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines have for some years prescribed substantial sentences for high-level corporate officials convicted of large frauds. Guidelines sentences for offenders of this type moved higher in 2001 with the passage of the Economic Crime Package amendments to the Guidelines, and higher still in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Today, any corporate insider convicted of even a moderately high-loss fraud is facing a guideline range measured in decades, or perhaps even mandatory life imprisonment. Successful sentencing advocacy on behalf of such defendants requires convincing the court to impose a sentence outside (in many cases, far …

Shame, Paul Campos

Publications

Here are some observations drawn from nearly seventeen years spent as a legal academic, using a particular device: the depiction of several fictional yet all-too-familiar legal academic characters. With one exception these characters are imaginary - yet their name is legion. The characters are The Drone, The Bully, The Hack, and The Fraud.

What can be done about them - or about us? Answering this question at all satisfactorily requires confronting more than the personal flaws of particular individuals: it necessitates grappling with the structural failures of the contemporary law school. It's true that some of what is wrong with …

An Assessment Of The Impact Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act On The Investigation Violations Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Karen Cascini, Alan L. Delfavero

WCBT Faculty Publications

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, a plethora of corporate scandals occurred. Due to these corporate debacles, corporate executives have been placed under fire. In response to such unethical conduct with regard to internal practices and financial reporting, legislation has been passed in order to ensure that corporations conduct their business in an ethical manner. The purpose of this paper is to assess the connection between the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOx), to determine whether SOx has influenced the FCPA’s investigative violation activities by examining the number of such investigations …

Corporate America Fights Back: The Battle Over Waiver Of The Attorney-Client Privilege, Michael L. Seigel

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article addresses a topic that is the subject of an on-going and heated contest between the business lobby and its lawyers, on the one side, and the U.S. Department of Justice on the other. The fight is over federal prosecutors' escalating practice of requesting that corporations accused of criminal wrongdoing waive their attorney-client privilege as part of their cooperation with the government. The Department of Justice views privilege waiver as a legitimate and critical tool in its post-Enron battle against white collar crime. The business lobby views it as encroaching on corporations' fundamental right to protect confidential attorney-client communications. …

Corruption In Education: A Global Legal Challenge, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

In every educational institution, in every country and generation, there is a struggle between corrupt practices and the continuing quest for high ethical standards. An educational institution is poorer if its members engage in corrupt practices. Such misfeasance wastes limited resources, demoralizes participants, and adversely affects productivity. The nature of this corruption is multi-faceted, and observes no geographic boundaries. It exists in every culture.

In some of these cases, educational corruption can be quite subtle. This is true where conduct that is neither criminal, fraudulent, nor a breach of fiduciary duty nevertheless undercuts the moral foundations of the educational enterprise. …

Data Security And Tort Liability, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

Established tort principles carefully applied to the contemporary problems of cybersecurity and identity theft can perform a key role in protecting the economic foundations of modern life. Tort law offers an appropriate legal regime for allocating the risks and spreading the costs of database intrusion-related losses. It can also create incentives, on the part of both database possessors and data subjects, to minimize the harm associated with breaches of database security.

In considering this field of tort law, it is useful to differentiate three questions. The first issue is whether database possessors have a legal duty to safeguard data subjects’ …

Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta: The Political Economy Of Securities Class Action Reform, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

I begin in Part II by explaining the wrong turn that the Court took in Basic. The Basic Court misunderstood the function of the reliance element and its relation to the question of damages. As a result, the securities class action regime established in Basic threatens draconian sanctions with limited deterrent benefit. Part III then summarizes the cases leading up to Stoneridge and analyzes the Court's reasoning in that case. In Stoneridge, like the decisions interpreting the reliance requirement of Rule 10b-5 that came before it, the Court emphasized policy implications. Sometimes policy implications are invoked to broaden the reach …