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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law
Puzzles In Controlling Shareholder Regimes And China: Shareholder Primacy And (Quasi) Monopoly, Sang Yop Kang
Puzzles In Controlling Shareholder Regimes And China: Shareholder Primacy And (Quasi) Monopoly, Sang Yop Kang
Sang Yop Kang
Professor Mark Roe explained that the shareholder wealth maximization norm (“the norm”) is not fit for a country with a (quasi) monopoly, because the norm encourages managers to maximize monopoly rents, to the detriment of the national economy. This Article provides new findings and counter-intuitive arguments as to the tension created by the norm and (quasi) monopoly by exploring three key corporate governance concepts that Roe did not examine—(1) “controlling minority structure” (CMS), where dominant shareholders hold a fractional ownership in their controlled-corporations, (2) “tunneling” (i.e., illicit transfer of corporate wealth to controlling shareholders), and (3) Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). …
Conflicted Counselors: Retaliation Protections For Attorney-Whistleblowers In An Inconsistent Regulatory Regime, Jennifer M. Pacella
Conflicted Counselors: Retaliation Protections For Attorney-Whistleblowers In An Inconsistent Regulatory Regime, Jennifer M. Pacella
Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.
Attorneys, especially in-house counsel, are subject to retaliation by employers in much the same way as traditional whistleblowers, often experiencing retaliation and loss of livelihood for reporting instances of wrongdoing about their clients. Although attorney-whistleblowing undoubtedly invokes ethical concerns, attorneys who “appear and practice” before the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) are required by federal law to act as internal whistleblowers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) and report evidence of material violations of the law within the organizations that they represent. An attorney’s failure to comply with these obligations will result in SEC-imposed civil penalties and disciplinary action. Recent federal …
The Moral Undercurrent Beneath The Regulatory Regime Of Investor Protection, Huhnkie Lee
The Moral Undercurrent Beneath The Regulatory Regime Of Investor Protection, Huhnkie Lee
Huhnkie Lee
No abstract provided.
Remembering George Michaely, Lawrence J. Trautman, Stanley Sporkin, John A. Dudley
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 …
Bounties For Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers Under The Dodd-Frank Act And Internal Revenue Code, Jennifer M. Pacella
Bounties For Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers Under The Dodd-Frank Act And Internal Revenue Code, Jennifer M. Pacella
Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.
In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million reward or “bounty” from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme by assisting thousands of U.S. taxpayers to hide their assets in Switzerland. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public’s common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which allows rewards for whistleblowers who are convicted …
Subjective Falsity Under Section 11 Of The Securities Act: Protecting Statements Of Opinion, Daniel H. Smith
Subjective Falsity Under Section 11 Of The Securities Act: Protecting Statements Of Opinion, Daniel H. Smith
Daniel H Smith
SUBJECTIVE FALSITY UNDER SECTION 11 OF THE SECURITIES ACT: PROTECTING STATEMENTS OF OPINION Daniel Hooper Smith Abstract Subjective Falsity Under Section 11 of the Securities Act: Protecting Statements of Opinion discusses the Sixth Circuit’s strict liability decision in Indiana State District Council of Laborers & Hod Carriers Pension & Welfare Fund v. Omnicare, Inc. for statements of opinion contained in registration statements, and its express departure from both the Second and Ninth Circuits. Consistent with the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits, this Article proposes that both objective and subjective falsity should be the requisite pleading standard for section 11 opinion …
Financial Institution Executive Compensation: The Problem Of Financially Motivated Excessive Risk-Taking, The Regulatory Response, And Common Sense Solutions, Jesse D. Gossett
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 …
Admission Of Guilt: Sinking Teeth Into The Sec's Sweetheart Deals, Larissa Lee
Admission Of Guilt: Sinking Teeth Into The Sec's Sweetheart Deals, Larissa Lee
Larissa Lee
Throughout its existence, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has allowed defendants to settle cases without admitting to the allegations of wrongdoing. This “neither admit nor deny” policy has received heavy criticism by judges, Congress, and the public, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. On June 18, 2013, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White announced the agency’s intention to require admissions of guilt in certain cases. While Chairman White did not articulate a clear standard of when admissions would be required, she did say that the agency would focus on the egregiousness of the defendant’s conduct and the …
Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang
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 …
E-Commerce And Electronic Payment System Risks: Lessons From Paypal, Lawrence J. Trautman
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 …
Financial Armageddon Routs Law Again, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos
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
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 …
Will Law Firms Go Public?, Roberta S. Karmel
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 …
Transaction Cost-Benefit Analysis, With Applications To Financial Regulation, D. Bruce Johnsen
Transaction Cost-Benefit Analysis, With Applications To Financial Regulation, D. Bruce Johnsen
D. Bruce Johnsen
As Coase convincingly showed, transaction costs inhibit the ability of market participants to achieve first-best outcomes. This paper proposes a novel and relatively simple alternative to traditional cost-benefit analysis when regulated parties face sufficiently low transaction costs that they can bargain directly or rely on competitive markets to set efficient terms of trade. In these settings, the only informational burdens financial market regulators need bear to assess corrective rules is to identify the relevant parties, the “good” they hope to exchange, and the transaction costs that inhibit them from maximizing joint gains from trade. A rule is justified only if …
The Stock Market Reaction To Class Action Filings Post Pslra, Mark S. Klock
The Stock Market Reaction To Class Action Filings Post Pslra, Mark S. Klock
Mark S Klock
Using a substantially larger sample than has been used before, and a sample that includes the Great Financial Crisis and its ensuing recession, I investigate the stock market reaction to securities class action filings following the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act through the first quarter of 2012. I find that on average, even after adjusting for market downturns, there is a statistically significant negative abnormal return at the time of filing. There is also a statistically significant negative abnormal return during the weeks preceding the filing indicating that the market partially, but not fully, anticipates these filings. …
Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown
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. …
Threats Escalate: Corporate Information Technology Governance Under Fire, Lawrence J. Trautman
Threats Escalate: Corporate Information Technology Governance Under Fire, Lawrence J. Trautman
Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.
In a previous publication The Board’s Responsibility for Information Technology Governance, (with Kara Altenbaumer-Price) we examined: The IT Governance Institute’s Executive Summary and Framework for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology 4.1 (COBIT®); reviewed the Weill and Ross Corporate and Key Asset Governance Framework; and observed “that in a survey of audit executives and board members, 58 percent believed that their corporate employees had little to no understanding of how to assess risk.” We further described the new SEC rules on risk management; Congressional action on cyber security; legal basis for director’s duties and responsibilities relative to IT governance; …
Regulation Not Prohibition: The Comparative Case Against The Insurable Interest Doctrine, Sharo Michael Atmeh
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 …