Insurance Law Commons^™

Remutualization, Erik F. Gerding

Publications

Policymakers need to rediscover the organizational form of business entity as a tool of financial regulation. Recent and classic scholarship has produced evidence that financial institutions organized as alternative entity forms – including investment bank partnerships and banks and insurance companies organized as mutual or cooperatives – tend to take less risk, exploit customers/consumer less, or commit less misconduct compared to counterparts organized as investor-owned corporations. This article builds off the work of Hill and Painter on investment banks organized as partnerships, Hansmann on the history and economics of banks and insurance companies organized as mutuals and cooperatives, and other …

Regulating Robo Advice Across The Financial Services Industry, Tom Baker, Benedict G. C. Dellaert

All Faculty Scholarship

Automated financial product advisors – “robo advisors” – are emerging across the financial services industry, helping consumers choose investments, banking products, and insurance policies. Robo advisors have the potential to lower the cost and increase the quality and transparency of financial advice for consumers. But they also pose significant new challenges for regulators who are accustomed to assessing human intermediaries. A well-designed robo advisor will be honest and competent, and it will recommend only suitable products. Because humans design and implement robo advisors, however, honesty, competence, and suitability cannot simply be assumed. Moreover, robo advisors pose new scale risks that …

A Preliminary Look At State Structures For Regulating Financial Services, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

Within the past thirty-five years approximately fifty nations have consolidated their financial regulatory agencies into either a single integrated agency or into two semi-integrated agencies. The United States has resisted this trend, due in part to a concern that the costs of such significant consolidation would exceed its benefits. The existing studies that compare the costs of the consolidated regulators around the world with the United States regime have often been discounted because they have been unable to control for differences in culture and regulatory intensity between those other countries and the United States. This article attempts to address this …

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French

Journal Articles

In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …

Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French

Christopher C. French

In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …

Gambling By Another Name; The Challenge Of Purely Speculative Derivatives, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives contracts can be used to hedge pre-existing risks, but they can also be used to speculate. This Article focuses on derivatives contracts in which both counterparties are speculators. These “purely speculative derivatives (PSD) contracts” have become increasingly common over the last several years and have notably resulted in the transfer of many tens of billions of dollars from institutions that had invested in the US subprime housing market to a handful of speculators who foresaw the market’s collapse, as well as many billions of dollars in fees to PSD brokers.

PSD contracts are problematic. PSD contracts are less-than-zero-sum transactions …

Derivatives: A Twenty-First Century Understanding, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives are commonly defined as some variation of the following: a financial instrument whose value is derived from the performance of a secondary source such as an underlying bond, commodity or index. But this definition is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Thus, not surprisingly, derivatives are largely misunderstood, including by many policy makers, regulators and legal analysts. It is important for interested parties such as policy makers to understand derivatives, because the types and uses of derivatives have exploded in the last few decades, and because these financial instruments can provide both social benefits and cause social harms. This Article presents …

The Tyranny Of The Multitude Is A Multiplied Tyranny: Is The United States Financial Regulatory Structure Undermining U.S. Competitiveness?, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

This Article examines whether the U.S. regulatory structure undermined U.S. competitiveness with foreign financial markets, particularly the United Kingdom's markets.

Insurance Against Misinformation In The Securities Market, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

Prepared at the request of the Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation in Canada, this study describes and evaluates evaluate a new capital markets insurance concept: securities misinformation insurance. This new insurance would compensate investors for losses caused by securities law violations. The most powerful objection to this new concept is that investors do not need a new insurance program for securities misinformation losses. Individual and institutional investors already can spread securities misinformation losses by holding a diversified portfolio. Nevertheless, a securities misinformation insurance program has the potential to provide systemic benefits: improved compliance with securities laws (resulting from cost …

E Pluribus Unum -- Out Of Many, One: Why The United States Needs A Single Financial Services Agency, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

The United States needs to consolidate the over 115 existing state and federal agencies that regulate banking, securities and insurance firms and their products and services into a single, federal financial services agency; a U.S. Financial Services Agency (“US FSA”). The US FSA would be able to more effectively regulate the U.S. financial services industry than the existing regulatory regime. The current U.S. financial regulatory regime suffers from a range of problems, including an inability to anticipate and plan for future financial crises, an inability by regulators to quickly adapt to market innovations and developments, inconsistent regulations for financial products …

Accountable Accountants: Is Third-Party Liability Necessary?, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Should accountants be liable to third parties if they conduct an audit in negligent manner? A half century ago, in Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, Niven & Co., Cardozo argued that they should not, unless their performance could be characterized as fraud. In recent years, courts in a minority of jurisdictions have concluded that Cardozo's argument is no longer compelling and they have found that "foreseeable" third parties could bring a tort action for ordinary negligence against the accountants. In addition to being subject to tort actions, accountants may also be liable under federal and state securities laws.

Suits against …

Recent Decisions, Anne Markey, James F. Maddox, Thomas C. Eklund, Thomas F. Taylor, Ralph Vinciguerra, Clark Mervis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Admiralty--Damages in a Maritime Collision or Stranding Caused by Mutual Fault Must be Apportioned According to the Comparative Negligence of the Parties

Anne Markey

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Admiralty--Wrongful Death--General Maritime Law Provides Remedy for Pain and Suffering of Decedent Incurred in Wrongful Death on High Seas but not for Funeral Expenses

James F. Maddox

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Arbitration--Securities Regulation--In International Sale of Securities, Arbitration Agreement is Binding not Withstanding Non-Waiverability of Judicial Remedy of Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Thomas C. Eklund

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IMMIGRATION--ALIEN COMMUTERS, BOTH DAILY AND SEASONAL, WHO HAVE ONCE OBTAINED THE STATUS OF IMMIGRANTS ARE PROPERLY CLASSIFIED AS SPECIAL IMMIGRANTS LAWFULLY …

Insurance-Variable Annuities-Application Of Investment Company Act Of 1940, William C. Brashares

Michigan Law Review

Anticipating the sale of variable annuity contracts as a part of its regular business, Prudential, a life insurance company, applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission for complete exemption from the requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Prudential claimed that it qualified for exemption as an insurance company under the definition of "insurance company" in the Investment Company Act ("a company ... whose primary and predominant business activity is the writing of insurance . . . and which is subject to supervision by the insurance commissioner or a similar official or agency of a state"). In the alternative, …

A Discussion And Analysis Of The Valic Decision, Laurence M. Jones

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stockholder Attacks On Corporate Pension Systems, F. Hodge O'Neal

Vanderbilt Law Review

This article considers the legal issues raised when a corporate pension system is attacked by minority stockholders. These issues perhaps best can be delineated by focusing attention on a representative fact-situation.

The board of directors of a corporation formulate a pension plan for corporate officers and employees. Retirement benefits under the plan are to be based on employees' "past service" (i.e., service rendered the company prior to the effective date of the plan) as well as on their "future service" (i.e., service rendered after the plan is in operation). The plan includes provisions for funding the pensions with either a …