Law Commons^™

The Duty To Manage Risk, A. Christine Hurt

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Foreign Investments And The Market For Law, Susan Franck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In this Article, Professors O'Hara O'Connor and Franck adapt and extend Larry Ribstein's positive framework for analyzing the role of jurisdictional competition in the law market. Specifically, the authors provide an institutional framework focused on interest group representation that can be used to balance the tensions underlying foreign investment law, including the desire to compete to attract investments and countervailing preferences to retain domestic policy-making discretion. The framework has implications for the respective roles of BITs and investment contracts as well as the inclusion and interpretation of various foreign investment provisions.

“Single Point Of Entry”: The Promise And Limits Of The Latest Cure For Bailouts, John Crawford

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

The Shrews That Tame Wall Street?, Mehrsa Baradaran

Popular Media

Although plenty of men are whistleblowers and financial reformers, too, the ones making the most noise are women. Women are significantly underrepresented in Wall Street firms as well as in Congress and the regulatory agencies.

Summary Of State, Dept. Of Bus. And Industry V. Check City P’Ship, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 90, Daven Cameron

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court interpreted NRS 605A.425 and concluded that the statute unambiguously provides that a borrower’s deferred deposit loan is to be capped at 25 percent of the borrower’s expected gross monthly income. This cap includes both principal and any interest or fees charged.

Advising Venture & Early-Stage Client: Issues Confronting Early-Stage Companies, Carroll D. Hurst

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Downstream Securities Regulation, Anita Krug

All Faculty Scholarship

Securities regulation wears two hats. Its “upstream” side governs firms in connection with their obtaining financing in the securities markets. That is, it regulates firms’ and issuers’ offers and sales of securities, whether in public offerings to retail investors or in private offerings to institutional investors. Its “downstream” side, by contrast, governs financial services providers, who assist with investors’ activities in those markets. Their services include providing advice regarding securities investments, as investment advisers do; aggregating investors’ assets for purposes of enabling those investors to invest their assets collectively, as mutual funds do; and acting as “middlemen” between buyers and …

Business Law Bulletin, Fall 2014

Business Law Bulletin

No abstract provided.

Regulation By Hypothetical, Mehrsa Baradaran

Scholarly Works

A new paradigm is afoot in banking regulation—and it involves a turn toward the more speculative. Previous regulatory instruments have included geographic restrictions, activity restrictions, disclosure mandates, capital requirements, and risk management oversight to ensure the safety of the banking system. This Article describes and contextualizes these regulatory tools and shows how and why they were formed to deal with industry change. The financial crisis of 2008 exposed the shortcomings in each of these regimes. In important ways, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (“Dodd-Frank”) departs from these past regimes and proposes something new: Call it …

Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit To American Households?, David J. Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Short History Of Postal Banking, Mehrsa Baradaran

Popular Media

Every other developed country in the world has postal banking, and we actually did too. It is important to remember this forgotten history as we begin to talk seriously about reviving postal banking because the system worked and it worked well. Postal banking, which existed in the United States from 1911 to 1966, was in fact so central to our banking system that it was almost the alternative to federal deposit insurance, and served as such from 1911 until 1933. The system prevented many bank runs during a turbulent time in the nation’s banking history—essentially performing central banking functions before …

New York Stock Exchange, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of the origins and early development of the New York Stock Exchange.

Revenue, U.S. Government, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of U.S. Government revenue receipts and spending during the early years of national history. Presents revenue generation statistics, information on revenue sources, and information on domestic and international political and economic factors affecting government revenue receipts.

Legitimacy And Impartiality In A Sovereign Debt Workout Mechanism, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Particularly in light of recent developments in sovereign debt litigation, there is a pressing need for discussion of more robust sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms. This paper contends that any sovereign debt workout mechanism (DWM) should embody the principles of legitimacy and impartiality, to the extent possible, in order to garner the stable and long-term adherence of international stakeholders. These two elements are important both for attracting support ex ante, i.e. in the initial development of any treaty, ad hoc, or soft law restructuring mechanism, and for ensuring ex post that a DWM is ultimately utilized by states and their creditors. …

Russia’S Contract Arbitrage, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Ukraine is poised to restructure its debt, but Russia may hold the best cards in the negotiation. Russia bought $3 billion in Ukrainian Eurobonds in late 2013 to prop up a political ally, since-deposed. As Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has pointed out, these bonds have unique terms that let Russia call for early repayment, putting it ahead of Ukraine’s private creditors. Meanwhile, Russia and its proxies hold enough bonds to block a restructuring vote or hold out, sticking more losses on other creditors. Russia has refused to restructure the bonds in the Paris Club of government-to-government creditors, claiming that …

Sales Suppression As A Service (Ssaas) & The Apple Store Solution, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of sales suppression fraud is estimated to cost state and local governments $20 billion annually ($2 billion in New York restaurants alone). Modern sales suppression (skimming) is carried out with technology (Zappers and Phantom-ware). Nine undercover sting operations in and around Manhattan and the Bronx by investigators working for New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance (NY-DT&F) have identified the SSaaS variant of modern skimming.

A striking example of SSaaS may be unfolding in the $1 million sales suppression case against Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY). It is alleged that Grimm skimmed sales from his Healthalicious restaurant in Manhattan, …

Summary Of Lavi V. Eighth Judicial District Court, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 38, Danielle Barraza

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether waiver of the “one-action rule” of NRS 40.430 terminates the procedural requirements for bringing a deficiency judgment action within six months of foreclosure under NRS 40.455.

Common Capital: A Thought Experiment In Cross-Border Resolution, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cross-border bank resolution efforts focus on burden-sharing between bank owners, private creditors and the public. There is little talk of burden-sharing among governments, despite the rich history of governments trying to stick one another with the cost of financial conglomerate failures. There is an unspoken fear that acknowledging the need to allocate losses among governments would undermine post-crisis pledges of No More Bailouts. This symposium essay argues for making government stakes in private financial firms more transparent, and for using the contingent public share as a key to loss allocation among governments in cross-border banking crises.

Real Estate Investment By Bank Holding Companies And Their Risk And Return: Nonparametric And Garch Procedures, Scott Deacle, Elyas Elyasiani

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

We investigate the association between real estate investment by US Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) and their return, risk and risk-adjusted returns. Three portfolios are formed of BHCs according to whether they do or do not invest in real estate, strictness of the regulation on real estate investment and the ratio of real estate investment to assets. Wilcoxon tests of differences in portfolio returns, risk, risk-adjusted returns and value at risk between each pair of portfolios are conducted to determine how engagement in real estate, stricter regulation and increased real estate investment affect BHC performance. These effects are also investigated within …

The Motivating Force Of A Bonus Pool, And Other Objections, Claire A. Hill

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

Debt-Buyer Lawsuits And Inaccurate Data, Peter A. Holland

Faculty Scholarship

Pursuant to secret purchase and sale agreements (also known as forward flow agreements), the accounts that banks sell to debt buyers are often sold “as is,” with explicit and emphatic disclaimers that the debts may not be owed, the amounts claimed may not be accurate, and documentation may be missing. Despite their full knowledge that the accuracy and completeness of the data has been specifically disclaimed by the bank, when they sue consumers, debt buyers tell courts that the information obtained from the bank is inherently reliable and accurate. In order to avoid a fraud on the courts, the contents …

Incentivizing Credit Rating Agencies Under The Issuer Pay Model Through A Mandatory Compensation Competition, Robert J. Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

Credit rating agencies are important institutions of the global capital markets. If they had performed properly, the financial crisis of 2008-2009 would not have occurred. This article offers the simplest fix proposed thus far, and it is contrarian. This Article accepts the central role of rating agencies in the regulation of bond investments, the realities of a duopoly, and the issuer-pay model of compensation. The status quo is the baseline. The role of regulation should be to create the conditions necessary to induce competition. This article proposes that a small, recurring portion of revenue earned by the largest rating agencies …

Business Law Bulletin, Spring 2014

Business Law Bulletin

No abstract provided.

An Overview Of The Fannie And Freddie Conservatorship Litigation, David J. Reiss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Single Point Of Entry And The Bankruptcy Alternative, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay, which will appear in Across the Great Divide: New Perspectives on the Financial Crisis, a Brookings Institution and Hoover Institution book, begins with a brief overview of concerns raised by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy about the adequacy of our existing architecture for resolving the financial distress of systemically important financial institutions. The principal takeaway of the first section is that Title II as enacted left most of these issues unanswered. By contrast, the FDIC’s new single point of entry strategy, which is introduced in the second section, can be seen as addressing nearly all of them. The …

Paying For Risk: Bankers, Compensation, And Competition, Simone M. Sepe, Charles K. Whitehead

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Efforts to control bank risk address the wrong problem in the wrong way. They presume that the financial crisis was caused by CEOs who failed to super­vise risk-taking employees. The responses focus on exe­cutive pay, believing that exe­cu­tives will bring non-execu­tives into line—using incen­­­­tives to manage risk-taking—once their own pay is regu­lated. What they over­look is the effect on non-executive pay of the com­pe­­ti­­tion for talent. Even if exe­­cu­tive pay is regu­lated, and exe­cu­tives act in the bank’s best interests, they will still be trapped into providing incentives that encourage risk-taking by non-executives due to the negative exter­nality that arises …

The Post Office Banks On The Poor, Mehrsa Baradaran

Popular Media

Approximately 88 million people in the United States, or 28 percent of the population, have no bank account at all, or do have a bank account, but primarily rely on check-cashing storefronts, payday lenders, title lenders, or even pawnshops to meet their financial needs. And these lenders charge much more for their services than traditional banks. The average annual income for an “unbanked” family is $25,500, and about 10 percent of that income, or $2,412, goes to fees and interest for gaining access to credit or other financial services. But a possible solution has appeared, in the unlikely guise of …

Judicial Inactivitism In Protecting Financial Consumer Against Predatory Sale Of Retail Structured Products: A Reflection From Retail Structured Notes Lawsuits In Taiwan, Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article analyzes 310 structured note lawsuits in Taiwan between 2000 and 2013 to examine courts’ attitude in dealing with claims of misselling retail structured notes. We find that courts were generally not favorable to retail investors. This provides a contrast with the financial regulator’s efforts to improve financial consumer protection since 2008. By examining plaintiffs’ key arguments and courts’ rulings, we find that it was difficult for investors to fulfill their burden of proof and courts were reluctant to award remedies when investors did sign on a contractual document confirming his knowledge on a few matters. While regulators are …

Deutsche Bank V Chang: A Dramatic Reversal By The Court Of Appeal, Kee Yang Low

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The 2012 High Court decision awarding scientist Chang Tse Wen US$49m for losses from investing in accumulators through Deutsche Bank has been overturned by the Court of Appeal. This article seeks to aid readers in understanding the CA decision and in appreciating the legal implications.

Improving Hedge Fund Governance, Houman B. Shadab

Articles & Chapters

This Article provides the first comprehensive scholarly analysis of the internal governance of hedge funds. Hedge fund governance consists of the funds’ underlying legal regime and the practices they adopt in response to lacking permanent capital and to reduce agency costs. Hedge fund governance is important because better governance can improve investor returns and help managers raise and retain capital. I argue that hedge fund governance is best understood as a type of responsive managerialism. It is a type of managerialism because applicable law and contracting structures give managers uniquely wide-ranging control over the fund and its operations. Hedge fund …