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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law

Single-Firm Event Studies, Securities Fraud, And Financial Crisis: Problems Of Inference, Andrew Baker May 2016

Single-Firm Event Studies, Securities Fraud, And Financial Crisis: Problems Of Inference, Andrew Baker

Andrew Baker

Lawsuits brought pursuant to section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Actdepend on the reliability of a statistical tool called an event study to adjudicate issues ofreliance, materiality, loss causation, and damages. Although judicial acceptance of theevent study technique is pervasive, there has been little empirical analysis of the ability ofevent studies to produce reliable results when applied to a single company’s security.
Using data from the recent financial crisis, this Note demonstrates that the standardmodelevent study used in most court proceedings can lead to biased inferences sanctionedthrough the Daubert standard of admissibility for expert testimony. In particular, in thepresence …


Tax Treatment Of Derivative Instruments, Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo Oct 2015

Tax Treatment Of Derivative Instruments, Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

Oluwaseun Viyon Ojo

The article provides an analysis of the various types of derivative instruments traded on the capital markets. As derivative instruments become frequently tradable in the Nigerian Financial market in the near projected future, it is expedient that the concerned companies plan adequately for the tax implications of such transactions and the appropriate tax authorities know how to treat the instrument of derivatives for the purpose of imposition of relevant taxes. This paper therefore dealt with the treatment of these instruments under the Capital Gains Tax Act (CGTA) and Companies Income Tax Act (CITA), though there are no specific rules for …


Democratizing Startups, Seth C. Oranburg Aug 2015

Democratizing Startups, Seth C. Oranburg

Seth C Oranburg

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 intends to “help entrepreneurs raise the capital they need to put Americans back to work and create an economy that’s built to last.” The goal is to “democratize startups” by making capital available to diverse entrepreneurs in new geographies. Yet the net effect of securities regulations and market conditions is the opposite. Startup companies are encouraged to stay private so capital is consolidating in large, mature firms instead of recycling into new startups. Evidence of consolidation is that once-rare “Unicorns” (billion-dollar startups) now number over 111. More money is going into huge …


The Law And Ethics Of High-Frequency Trading, Steven R. Mcnamara Mar 2015

The Law And Ethics Of High-Frequency Trading, Steven R. Mcnamara

Steven R. McNamara

Michael Lewis’s recent book Flash Boys has resurrected the controversy concerning “high-frequency trading” (HFT) in the stock markets. While HFT has been important in the stock markets for about a decade, and may have already peaked in terms of its economic significance, it touched a nerve with a public suspicious of financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. In reality, HFT is not one thing, but a wide array of practices conducted by technologically adept electronic traders. Some of these practices are benign, and some even bring benefits such as liquidity and improved price discovery to …


Broker-Dealer: A Fiduciary By Any Other Name?, William Alan Nelson Ii Mar 2015

Broker-Dealer: A Fiduciary By Any Other Name?, William Alan Nelson Ii

William Alan Nelson II

Broker-dealers, unlike investment advisers, are not regulated as fiduciaries when providing investment advice, even though broker-dealers are holding themselves out as financial advisors and offering virtually identical services to investors. The lack of consistent regulation of financial service providers arises from the structure in which advice historically has been delivered. Financial services regulation since the Great Depression has developed along roughly dual tracks: laws governing the sale of financial products, which may or may not require that the products be suitable for the customer, and laws governing investment advice, which impose a fiduciary requirement on the adviser to act solely …


Insider Trading And Evolutionary Psychology: Strong Reciprocity, Cheater Detection, And The Expanding Boundaries Of The Law, Steven R. Mcnamara Aug 2014

Insider Trading And Evolutionary Psychology: Strong Reciprocity, Cheater Detection, And The Expanding Boundaries Of The Law, Steven R. Mcnamara

Steven R. McNamara

Insider trading law has expanded in recent years to cover instances of trading on non-public information that fall outside of the fiduciary duty framework set forth in the landmark cases of Chiarella and Dirks. The trend towards a broader insider trading law moves the law closer towards what evolutionary psychology tells us humans desire when engaging in collective action: that individuals benefit in proportion to the effort or investment they make in a common enterprise. Insider trading law can therefore be understood as a societal response to cheating in group activities, and the recent expansion of the law as …


Remembering George Michaely, Lawrence J. Trautman, Stanley Sporkin, John A. Dudley Apr 2014

Remembering George Michaely, Lawrence J. Trautman, Stanley Sporkin, John A. Dudley

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

This short essay is a memorial tribute about George P. Michaely, Jr. (1926 to 2014). After graduating from both the University of Notre Dame and its law school, he began his legal career, serving for approximately seven years as attorney in the Office of General Counsel. He was then appointed Chief Counsel of the Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance, where he served for approximately the next four years and was responsible for advising the Commission and the public concerning the interpretation of the statutory provisions and rules relating to the registration provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the …


Prudential Regulation And The Knowledge Problem: Towards A New Paradigm Of Systemic Risk Regulation, Michael T. Cappucci Jan 2014

Prudential Regulation And The Knowledge Problem: Towards A New Paradigm Of Systemic Risk Regulation, Michael T. Cappucci

Michael T Cappucci

In this article I examine the regulatory structure created by Title I of the Dodd-Frank Act and ask whether the prudential regulatory authority given to the Financial Stability Oversight Council is an effective tool for accomplishing the mission of identifying and containing risk in the financial system. Prudential regulation, the principal tool at the disposal of the FSOC, was developed in the 19th century to counteract moral hazard in the banking system. Over time, prudential supervision has become policymakers’ regulation of choice, to the point where it is now employed in the oversight and regulation of non-bank financial firms. However, …


Financial Institution Executive Compensation: The Problem Of Financially Motivated Excessive Risk-Taking, The Regulatory Response, And Common Sense Solutions, Jesse D. Gossett Jan 2014

Financial Institution Executive Compensation: The Problem Of Financially Motivated Excessive Risk-Taking, The Regulatory Response, And Common Sense Solutions, Jesse D. Gossett

Jesse D Gossett

This article addresses the issue of executive compensation at financial institutions as it relates to encouraging excessive risk-taking at these firms. First, I examine the economics of compensation and its relationship to risk-taking at financial firms. Next, I take a critical look at compensation provisions of Dodd-Frank (and to a lesser extent, Sarbanes-Oxley) and describe not only what Dodd-Frank does, but more importantly what it does not do. I then make specific recommendations for rules regulators should adopt under Dodd-Frank for the purpose of using compensation plans as a way of reducing excessive risk at financial institutions. I make these …


Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang Jan 2014

Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Unfair self-dealing and expropriation of minority shareholders by a controlling shareholder are common business practices in developing countries (“bad-law countries”). Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, there are many questions unanswered in relation to behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. For example, a puzzle is that some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries voluntarily extract minority shareholders less than other controlling shareholders. Applying Mancur Olson’s framework of political theory of “banditry” to the context of corporate governance, this Article proposes that there are at least two categories of controlling shareholders. “Roving controllers” are dominant shareholders with …


A Preliminary Look At State Structures For Regulating Financial Services, Elizabeth F. Brown Jan 2014

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 …


An Overview Of The Fannie And Freddie Conservatorship Litigation, David J. Reiss Jan 2014

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

David J Reiss

The fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are subject to the vagaries of politics, regulation, public opinion, the economy, and not least of all the numerous cases that have been filed in 2013 against various government entities arising from the placement of the two companies into conservatorship. This short article will provide an overview of the last of these. The litigation surrounding Fannie and Freddie’s conservatorship raises all sorts of issues about the federal government’s involvement in housing finance. These issues are worth setting forth as the proper role of these two companies in the housing finance system is …


Assessing Hong Kong As An International Financial Centre, Bryane Michael Jan 2014

Assessing Hong Kong As An International Financial Centre, Bryane Michael

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

How can Hong Kong hope to catch up to London and New York as an international financial centre? Close ties with the Mainland result in financial fragility which could decrease Hong Kong's prospects as a financial centre in the longer term. In this paper, we review Hong Kong's dependence on the Mainland's economy. We provide 21 recommendations for strengthening Hong Kong's banking and securities markets.


E-Commerce And Electronic Payment System Risks: Lessons From Paypal, Lawrence J. Trautman Oct 2013

E-Commerce And Electronic Payment System Risks: Lessons From Paypal, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

What are the major risks perceived by those engaged in e-commerce and electronic payment systems? What development risks, if they become reality, may cause substantial increases in operating costs or threaten the very survival of the enterprise? This article utilizes the relevant annual report disclosures from eBay (parent of PayPal), along with other eBay and PayPal documents, as a potentially powerful teaching device. Most of the descriptive language to follow is excerpted directly from eBay’s regulatory filings. My additions include weaving these materials into a logical presentation and providing supplemental sources for those who desire a deeper look (usually in …


Surveillant And Counselor: A Reorientation In Compliance For Financial Firms, James A. Fanto Sep 2013

Surveillant And Counselor: A Reorientation In Compliance For Financial Firms, James A. Fanto

James A. Fanto

This Article argues that the compliance officer should play a major role in the ongoing reform of financial firms because compliance is now well established and accepted and compliance officers are close to decision-making at all levels of a firm. The contention is that the role of compliance must be rethought and reoriented if it is to contribute fully to the reform. Compliance officers now ensure that the firms and their employees comply with the numerous laws and regulations governing them and their activities, primarily by producing detailed compliance procedures and policies and then revising, and monitoring compliance with, them. …


Financial Armageddon Routs Law Again, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos Aug 2013

Financial Armageddon Routs Law Again, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos

Nicholas L Georgakopoulos

This essay, after highlighting the unique aspects of financial markets, offers a mostly rational account for financial crises, centering on the 2008 crisis as an example. The thesis is that market participants overestimate the duration of high productivity growth due to new technologies and produce occasional—and likely unavoidable—bubbles. Considering potential changes in the regulation of financial markets, the conclusion is grim. Regulators appear to have exhausted the effective legal levers against overestimations of continued high growth. The legislative responses to the last few crises were likely unproductive. The sole (but still unrealistic) effective protection would be the constitutional development of …


Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman Jul 2013

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Now over 36 years old, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. Over the past thirty-six years NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership …


Dodd-Frank Regulators, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Agency Capture, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker Apr 2013

Dodd-Frank Regulators, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Agency Capture, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) has raised the stakes for financial regulation by requiring more than twenty federal agencies to promulgate nearly 400 new rules. Scholars, regulated entities, Congress, courts, and the agencies themselves have all recognized — even before Dodd-Frank — the lack of rigorous cost-benefit analysis in the context of financial rulemaking. The D.C. Circuit has struck down several financial regulations because of inadequate cost-benefit analysis, with three more challenges to be decided this summer. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address this problem, including a call for the President to intervene …


Will Law Firms Go Public?, Roberta S. Karmel Apr 2013

Will Law Firms Go Public?, Roberta S. Karmel

Roberta S. Karmel

Law in the United States is a big business and big law firms are a global business. Currently, under rules of the American Bar Association (ABA) and most states law, firms are not allowed either to include non-lawyers as partners or accept equity investments from non-lawyers. This Article will argue that (even if law firms retain the form of partnerships) they eventually will accept investments from third parties, and possibly even go public, but this development could lead to a loss of professionalism, as it has with other industries, and could also lead to the end of self-regulation. Among the …


Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown Jan 2013

Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. …


The Regulation Of U.S. Money Market Funds: Lessons From Europe, Latoya C. Brown Jan 2013

The Regulation Of U.S. Money Market Funds: Lessons From Europe, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

The recent financial crisis challenged long held perceptions of money market funds (“MMFs”) as stable and highly liquid instruments. Regulators in the US and in Europe now seek to impose additional rules on MMFs to avoid another significant failure as happened to the Reserve Fund. In the US, the debate is drawing even more media attention as question of which regulatory body - such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, and the Financial Stability Oversight Council – should lead the way has taken interesting twists and turns. This paper examines primary reform options being proposed in the …


Dirty Remics, Revisited, David J. Reiss, Bradley T. Borden Jan 2013

Dirty Remics, Revisited, David J. Reiss, Bradley T. Borden

David J Reiss

We review the differences between two visions for the residential mortgage markets, one driven by the goal of efficiency and the other driven by the goals of efficiency and consumer protection. Both visions advocate for structural reform, but one advocates for industry-led change and the other advocates for input from a wider array of stakeholders. Broader input is not only important to ensure that a broad range of interests are represented but also to ensure the long-term legitimacy of the new system. This is a response to Joshua Stein, Dirt Lawyers Versus Wall Street: A Different View, PROBATE AND PROPERTY …


Running In The Shadows, Joshua A. Craven Jun 2012

Running In The Shadows, Joshua A. Craven

joshua a craven

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 can be characterized as a run on the shadow banking system. Over several decades, the United States slowly and quietly developed a massive shadow banking system—a complex chain of borrowers and investors entering into repo agreements financed by money-market mutual funds and primary dealers, collateralized with asset-backed securities derived from mortgages originated by lenders and securitized through special purpose vehicles, then purchased by banks with capital raised by entering into repo agreements. For years, this chain of transactions operated to meet banks’ short-term liquidity needs, until uncertainty in the value of the asset-backed securities used …


La Transparencia En La Protección De Datos Personales, Bruno L. Costantini García May 2012

La Transparencia En La Protección De Datos Personales, Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

La Transparencia en la Protección de Datos Personales, ponencia elaborada dentro de los trabajos del VII Congreso Nacional de Organismos Públicos Autónomos (OPAM)


The Alternative Forms Of Dispute Settlement And The Essential Difference Between These And Arbitration, Michael Diathesopoulos Mar 2012

The Alternative Forms Of Dispute Settlement And The Essential Difference Between These And Arbitration, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

The paper examines the characteristics of some common alternative forms of dispute settlement and their key differences from arbitration regarding their nature and scope. Its purpose is to explore each mechanism's suitability for specific types of disputes.


Aspectos Generales Dela Publicidad En México. "La Publicidad De Productos, Servicios, Y Actividades Reguladas Por La Ley General De Salud", Bruno L. Costantini García Feb 2012

Aspectos Generales Dela Publicidad En México. "La Publicidad De Productos, Servicios, Y Actividades Reguladas Por La Ley General De Salud", Bruno L. Costantini García

Bruno L. Costantini García

Introducción a las generalidades de la regulación en materia de publicidad de insumos para el consumo humano (salud) en México.


Are Short Sellers Really The Enemy Of Efficient Securities Markets Or Are They Just Public Patsies?, Abel C. Ramirez Jr. Jan 2012

Are Short Sellers Really The Enemy Of Efficient Securities Markets Or Are They Just Public Patsies?, Abel C. Ramirez Jr.

Abel C Ramirez Jr.

When the 2008 global financial crisis caused the stock market to drastically decline, short selling generated intense political and economic scrutiny that negatively characterized the practice as a predatory scheme. When the 2008 global financial crisis caused the stock market to drastically decline, short selling generated intense political and economic scrutiny that negatively characterized the practice as a predatory scheme. As a legitimate investment strategy, short selling is a method by which investors can capitalize on over-valued stocks that decline – this is NOT the same as “contributing” to the stock’s decline, which short selling’s detractors might believe.


Regulation Not Prohibition: The Comparative Case Against The Insurable Interest Doctrine, Sharo Michael Atmeh Jan 2012

Regulation Not Prohibition: The Comparative Case Against The Insurable Interest Doctrine, Sharo Michael Atmeh

Sharo M Atmeh

American law requires an insurable interest—a pecuniary or affective stake in the subject of an insurance policy—as a predi-cate to properly obtaining insurance. In theory, the rule prevents both wagering on individual lives and moral hazard. In practice, the doctrine is avoided by complex insurance transaction structuring to effectuate both origination and transfers of insurance by individuals without an insurable interest. This paper argues that it is time to ab-andon the insurable interest doctrine. As both the English and Aus-tralian experiences indicate, elimination of the insurable interest doctrine will have little detrimental pecuniary effect on the insurance industry, while freeing …


Dodd-Frank, Securitization, And The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stephen P. Hoffman Jan 2012

Dodd-Frank, Securitization, And The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stephen P. Hoffman

Stephen P. Hoffman

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the regulation of financial markets in order to not only prevent such disasters in the future, but to help restore financial stability more quickly if and when they do occur. In this Paper, I provide a background of the events leading up to the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression, focusing on …


The Uncertainty Of “True Sale” Analysis In Originator Bankruptcy, Stephen P. Hoffman Jan 2012

The Uncertainty Of “True Sale” Analysis In Originator Bankruptcy, Stephen P. Hoffman

Stephen P. Hoffman

While much of law is complex or unclear, it is unusual for a judge to comment that a legal doctrine is so unsettled that courts “could flip a coin” to decide an issue. Unfortunately for practitioners, determining what constitutes a “true sale” for bankruptcy purposes is such an issue. Add to this the recent novel and innovative processes of structured finance and asset-backed securitization, and you have the stuff of law students’—and corporate counsels’—nightmares. As a result, courts and legislatures need to provide clarity in this area so that originators can safely structure investments and transactions, not only for the …