Securities Law Commons^™

The Macroprudential Turn: From Institutional “Safety And Soundness” To “Systemic Stability” In Financial Supervision, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

This Working Paper is no longer available. The published version of this article is available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/1405/ Since the global financial dramas of 2008-09, authorities on financial regulation have come increasingly to counsel the inclusion of macroprudential policy instruments in the standard ‘toolkit’ of finance-regulatory measures employed by financial supervisors. The hallmark of this perspective is its focus not simply on the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions, as is characteristic of the traditional ‘microprudential’ perspective, but also on certain structural features of financial systems that can imperil such systems as wholes. Systemic ‘financial stability’ thus comes to supplement, …

Corporate America Fights Back: The Battle Over Waiver Of The Attorney-Client Privilege, Michael L. Seigel

Michael L Seigel

This Article addresses a topic that is the subject of an on-going and heated contest between the business lobby and its lawyers, on the one side, and the U.S. Department of Justice on the other. The fight is over federal prosecutors' escalating practice of requesting that corporations accused of criminal wrongdoing waive their attorney-client privilege as part of their cooperation with the government. The Department of Justice views privilege waiver as a legitimate and critical tool in its post-Enron battle against white collar crime. The business lobby views it as encroaching on corporations' fundamental right to protect confidential attorney-client communications. …

Outcome Report Of Roundtable On Human Rights Impact Assessments (Hrias) Of Large-Scale Foreign Investments, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI, the Sciences Po Law School Clinic, and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute recently published an outcome document of a one-day roundtable focused on the opportunities and challenges presented by human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of large-scale foreign investments. The roundtable, which was held in April 2014 at Columbia University, provided an opportunity for collaborative reflection on the development of HRIAs, as well as on ways to enhance HRIAs as a framework and tool for both human rights advocacy and human rights risk management in respect of foreign investments.

By sharing the outcomes of the roundtable, this document …

A Comparative Analysis Of Shareholder Derivative Litigations In Taiwan: Rethinking Of Law, Implementation, And Suggestion, Ting-Hsien Cheng

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990s, Taiwan’s capital market has been tarnished by several corporate scandals, many involving managerial embezzlements and false/misleading financial reports. One of the main reasons why these scandals frequently occurred is the lack of an effective system of checks-and-balances or good corporate governance mechanisms within Taiwan’s companies. To deal with this deficiency for corporate governance, there have been many discussions in Taiwan’s academia of corporate laws about how to reform the provisions of Taiwan Company Act, especially for a better internal monitoring mechanism.

In fact, in last two decades, Taiwan has taken a series of legal reforms as an …

Who Sits On Texas Corporate Boards? Texas Corporate Directors: Who They Are & What They Do, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Corporate directors play an important role in governing American business, in the capital formation process, and are fundamental to the stewardship of economic growth. Texas businesses play a disproportionately important role among the states in aggregate U.S. job creation, responsible for 37% of all net new American jobs since the post 2008-2009 recovery began. It is the job of the board of directors to govern the corporation. The duties and responsibilities of a corporate director include: the duty of care; duty of loyalty; and duty of good faith. This paper results from the author’s previously assembled biographical data for most …

Reverse Cross-Listings -- The Coming Race To List In Emerging Markets And An Enhanced Understanding Of Classical Bonding, Nicholas C. Howson, Vikramaditya S. Khanna

Law & Economics Working Papers

This paper examines the implications for the traditional "legal bonding" hypothesis arising from future "reverse" cross-listings, meaning the cross-listing by issuers from jurisdictions with stronger investor protections into capital markets and on exchanges where investor protections are deemed less robust. We use as examples the first "Indian Depositary Receipt" or IDR IPO in May 2010, and IPOs we believe will complete on a future Shanghai Stock Exchange "international board". This analysis serves to dilute one of the long-standing negative implications of the traditional legal bonding account -- that reverse cross-listings by issuers from jurisdictions with stronger investor protections into weaker …

The Outside Investor: Citizen Shareholders & Corporate Alienation, Anne M. Tucker

Anne Tucker

This Article explores the creation and conundrum of citizen shareholders - investors who enter the securities market primarily through employer-sponsored defined-contribution plans, invest in mutual or index funds, and are saving for long-term goals like retirement. Citizen shareholders are a consequence of a retirement revolution, and are the fastest growing group of investors. Citizen shareholders are distinguishable from other shareholders on the grounds of choice, exit, and the number of intermediaries inserted into the investment chain in defined-contribution plans. They are largely missing from corporate policy and scholarship debates; few discussions have incorporated the growing reality that shareholder status has …

Unilateral Forum Selection Clauses In Corporate Bylaws: A Synopsis Of The Debate, Bryce Cullinane

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Short Road Home To Delaware: Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund V. Chevron, Anne M. Tucker

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

One of the biggest Delaware Supreme Court cases of 2013 wasn’t. The Delaware Court of Chancery opinion in Boilermakers Local 154 Retirement Fund v. Chevron Corp., upheld the enforceability of Delaware forum selection clause bylaws unilaterally adopted by corporate boards of directors. It was widely expected that the Delaware Supreme Court would uphold the Court of Chancery’s opinion. However, Plaintiffs dismissed their appeal and moved to dismiss their remaining claims in the Court of Chancery, leaving intact Chancellor Strine’s strong support of forum selection clauses. National Industries Group (Holding) v. Carlyle Investment Managements L.L.C. and TC Group, L.L.C., a 2013 …

Exploring The Standard Of Review Of Transactions With Controlling Shareholders After In Re Mfw Shareholders Litigation (Decided May 29th, 2013), Miriam Bitton, Odelia Minnes

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Article will begin with a review of the MFW case, followed by a review of the judicial history prior to this decision. Then it will try to analyze, albeit partially, some of the reasons for why this judgment is timely and reasonable considering changes that occurred in the last decades. It will also address some of the courts' reasoning and its persuasiveness.

Lessons Of 2013: The Perils Of "Ready, Fire, Aim" And The Importance Of An Integrated Litigation Strategy In Corporate Governance Matters, Thad A. Davis, Leslie A. Wulff

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Fall 2013 Symposium: Contemporary Trends In Corporate Litigation, Robert Anderson Iv, Myron T. Steele, Katherine J. Blair, Thad A. Davis, James R. Griffin, James J. Moloney

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

A Blended Approach To Reducing The Costs Of Shareholder Litigation, Valian A. Afshar

Michigan Law Review

Multiforum litigation and federal securities law class actions impose heavy costs on corporations and their shareholders without producing proportionate benefits. Both are largely the result of the agency problem between shareholders and their attorneys, driven more by the attorneys’ interests in generating fees than by the interests of their clients. In response to each of these problems, commentators have recommended a number of solutions. Chief among them are forum selection and mandatory arbitration provisions in a corporation’s charter or bylaws. This Note recommends that corporations unilaterally adopt both forum selection and mandatory arbitration bylaws to address shareholder lawsuits under state …

Policing Public Companies: An Empirical Examination Of The Enforcement Landscape And The Role Played By State Securities Regulators, Amanda M. Rose, Larry J. Leblanc

Florida Law Review

Multiple different securities law enforcers can pursue U.S. public companies for the same misconduct. These enforcers include a variety of federal agencies, class action attorneys, and derivative litigation attorneys, as well as fifty separate state regulators. Scholars and policy makers have increasingly questioned whether the benefits of this multienforcer approach are worth the costs, or whether a more coordinated and streamlined securities enforcement regime might lead to efficiency gains. How serious are these concerns? And what role do state regulators play in the enforcement mix? Whereas the enforcement efforts of the Securities and Exchange Commission and class action lawyers have …

Protecting The State From Itself? Regulatory Interventions In Corporate Governance And The Financing Of China’S 'State Capitalism', Nicholas C. Howson

Law & Economics Working Papers

From the start of China’s "corporatization without privatization" process in the late 1980s, a Chinese corporate governance regime apparently shareholder-empowering and determined by enabling legal norms has been altered by mandatory governance mechanisms imposed by a state administrative agency, most often to protect minority shareholders against exploitation by the party state controlling shareholders which are the accepted powers of "state capitalism." This chapter reviews the path of that benign intervention and the structural reasons for it, and then speculates on why this novel identity of the Chinese party state’s “fragmented authoritarianism” continues to be tolerated by the same party state, …

Reverse Cross-Listings - The Coming Race To List In Emerging Markets And An Enhanced Understanding Of Classical Bonding, Nicholas C. Howson, Vikramaditya Khanna

Articles

Studies have found that when a U.S. issuer lists abroad on a foreign exchange, its shares exhibit negative abnormal returns. This negative movement may be because the market expects that the foreign listing will facilitate undetectable insider trading on the foreign exchange or other conduct impermissible in the United States.

Halliburton, Basic And Fraud On The Market: The Need For A New Paradigm, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: Halliburton, Basic and Fraud on the Market: The Need for a New Paradigm

If defrauded securities plaintiffs cannot bring a class-action lawsuit, there often will be no effective remedy since the amount at stake for individual plaintiffs is not sufficient to warrant the substantial costs of litigation. To surmount the problem of individualized reliance and establish commonality, federal courts for twenty-five years have been employing the Basic fraud-on-the-market theory which posits that, in an efficient market, investors rely on the integrity of the market price.

While class certification at one time was a matter of course, today it is …

Reconciling Tax Law And Securities Regulation, Omri Marian

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Issuers in registered securities offerings must disclose the expected tax consequences to investors investing in the offered securities (“nonfinancial tax disclosure”). This Article advances three arguments regarding nonfinancial tax disclosures. First, nonfinancial tax disclosure practice, as the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) has sanctioned it, does not fulfill its intended regulatory purposes. Currently, nonfinancial tax disclosures provide irrelevant information, sometimes fail to provide material information, create unnecessary transaction costs, and divert valuable administrative resources to the enforcement of largely-meaningless requirements. Second, the practical reason for this failure is the SEC and tax practitioners’ unsuccessful attempt to address investors’ heterogeneous …

Lig Se Assemelha Em Parte Aos Covered Bonds Que Contribuíram Para A Crise Do Subprime, Luiz Rafael De Vargas Maluf

Luiz Rafael de Vargas Maluf

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

Debêntures: Iniciativas Para Aumento De Liquidez E Fomento Ao Mercado Secundário, Luiz Rafael De Vargas Maluf

Luiz Rafael de Vargas Maluf

No abstract provided.

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.

Corporate Boardroom Diversity: Why Are We Still Talking About This?, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

What exactly is board diversity and why does it matter? How does diversity fit in an attempt to build the best board for any organization? What attributes and skills are required by law and what mix of experiences and talents provide the best corporate governance? Even though most companies say they are looking for diversity, why has there been such little progress? Are required director attributes, which are a must for all boards, consistent with future diversity gains and aligned with achieving high performance and optimal board composition? My goal is to provide answers to these questions, and to discuss …

Limits Of Disclosure, Steven M. Davidoff, Claire A. Hill

Steven Davidoff Solomon

One big focus of attention, criticism, and proposals for reform in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis has been securities disclosure. Many commentators have emphasized the complexity of the securities being sold, arguing that no one could understand the disclosure. Some observers have noted that disclosures were sometimes false or incomplete. What follows these issues, to some commentators, is that, whatever other lessons we may learn from the crisis, we need to improve disclosure. How should it be improved? Commentators often lament the frailties of human understanding, notably including those of everyday retail investors—people who do not understand or …

Confronting The Peppercorn Settlement In Merger Litigation: An Empirical Analysis And A Proposal For Reform, Jill E. Fisch, Sean J. Griffith, Steven M. Davidoff

Steven Davidoff Solomon

Shareholder litigation challenging corporate mergers is ubiquitous, with the likelihood of a shareholder suit exceeding 90%. The value of this litigation, however, is questionable. The vast majority of merger cases settle for nothing more than supplemental disclosures in the merger proxy statement. The attorneys that bring these lawsuits are compensated for their efforts with a court-awarded fee. This leads critics to charge that merger litigation benefits only the lawyers who bring the claims, not the shareholders they represent. In response, defenders of merger litigation argue that the lawsuits serve a useful oversight function and that the improved disclosures that result …

Enforcement Of The Duties Of Directors By The Securities And Futures Investors Protection Center In Taiwan, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Christopher Chao-hung CHEN

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of the Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center (SFIPC) in Taiwan in enforcing the duties of directors. To help shareholders or investors pursue a director for breach of company law or securities regulations, Taiwan created the SFIPC, a charity sanctioned by statutes, to bring class action or direct legal action on behalf of minority shareholders or individual investors. By conducting an empirical survey of judgments from lawsuits involving the SFIPC since its creation, we found that the SFIPC is generally very active in enforcing securities regulations but far less active …

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 …

Intermediaries Revisited: Is Efficient Certification Consistent With Profit Maximization?, Jonathan M. Barnett

Jonathan M Barnett

Private certification mechanisms are a key component of the regulatory infrastructure in the financial sector and other commercial settings. It is generally assumed that certification intermediaries have profit-based incentives to deliver accurate information to the certified market. But this view does not account for repeated failures in certification markets. Those failures can be explained by an inherent defect in the incentive structure of certification intermediaries: entry barriers both support and undermine the consistent supply of accurate information to the certified market. Certification markets tend to converge on a handful of providers protected by switching costs, product opacity and reputational noise. …

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 …

Cvm Set To Reduce Costs And Bureaucracy For Equity Offerings, Luiz Rafael De Vargas Maluf, Nair Veras Saldanha Janson

Luiz Rafael de Vargas Maluf

No abstract provided.