Administrative Law Commons^™

Liability And Admission Of Wrongdoing In Public Enforcement Of Law, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Some judges and scholars have questioned the social value of the standard form in which the Securities and Exchange Commission settles its corporate enforcement actions, including the agency’s use of essentially unreviewed consent decrees that include no admission of liability or wrongdoing. This essay for a symposium on SEC enforcement provides an analysis of the deterrent effects of the three main components of settlements in public enforcement of law: liability, admission, and remedy. The conclusions are the following. All three components have beneficial deterrent effects. Cost considerations nonetheless justify some settlements that dispense with liability or admission, or even both. …

Don’T ‘Screw Joe The Plummer’: The Sausage-Making Of Financial Reform, Kimberly D. Krawiec

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines agency-level activity during the preproposal rulemaking phase—a time period about which little is known despite its importance to policy outcomes—through an analysis of federal agency activity in connection with section 619 of the Dodd–Frank Act, popularly known as the Volcker Rule. By capitalizing on transparency efforts specific to Dodd–Frank, I am able to access information on agency contacts whose disclosure is not required by the Administrative Procedure Act and, therefore, not typically available to researchers.

I analyze the roughly 8,000 public comment letters received by the Financial Stability Oversight Council in advance of its study regarding Volcker …