Securities Law Commons^™

Making A Market For Corporate Disclosure, Kevin S. Haeberle, M. Todd Henderson

Kevin Scott Haeberle

It has long been said that market forces alone will result in a problematic under-sharing of information by public companies. Since the 1930s, the main regulatory response to this market failure has come in the form of the massive mandatory-disclosure regime that sits at the foundation of modern securities law. But this regime—especially when viewed along with its speech-chilling antifraud overlay—no doubt leaves society without all the corporate information from which it would benefit. The typical fix offered to the problem has been more of the same: add to the 100-plus-page list of what firms must disclose, often based on …

A New Market-Based Approach To Securities Law, Kevin S. Haeberle

Kevin Scott Haeberle

Modern securities regulation has three main areas, each of which is plagued by a core problem. Mandatory disclosure law leaves society with suboptimal disclosure, as the government calls for too little of some information (for example, management analysis of company prospects) and too much of other information (for example, data about trivial executive perks). Securities fraud law (specifically, its central fraud-on-the-market theory of reliance) yields damages at odds with any reasonable theory of compensation and deterrence. And insider trading law fails to achieve its ends because incentives to police illegal trading and tipping by executives are currently weak.

In this …

Securities Laws As Foreign Policy, Karen E. Woody

Karen Woody

No abstract provided.

Like Moths To A Flame - International Securities Litigation After Morrison: Correcting The Supreme Court's Transactional Test, Marco Ventoruzzo

Marco Ventoruzzo

Because of the broad jurisdiction American courts have asserted in cases arising under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, they have been called a Shangri-la for “foreign-cubed” class actions with little connection to the United States. Over the past forty years, the standards used by American courts to determine their jurisdiction in international securities disputes have evolved, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Morrison decision of 2010. The new transactional test promulgated in Morrison replaced all of its predecessor tests, from a test measuring whether the conduct in question took place in the United States to a test measuring whether …

The Macroprudential Turn: From Institutional 'Safety And Soundness' To Systematic 'Financial Stability' In Financial Supervision, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

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, though not to supplant, institutional ‘safety and soundness’ as a regulatory desideratum. The move from primarily micro- …

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 Governance Reform In A Time Of Crisis, Christopher M. Bruner

Christopher M. Bruner

In this article I argue that crisis-driven corporate governance reform efforts in the United States and the United Kingdom that aim to empower shareholders are misguided, and offer an explanation of why policymakers in each country have reacted to the financial crisis as they have. I first discuss the risk incentives of shareholders and managers in financial firms, and examine how excessive leverage and risk-taking in pursuit of short-term returns for shareholders led to the crisis. I then describe the far greater power and centrality that U.K. shareholders have historically possessed relative to their U.S. counterparts, and explore historical and …

Legal Lines In Shifting Sand: Immigration Law And Human Rights In The Wake Of September 11, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

In March of 2004, a group of legal scholars gathered at Boston College Law School to examine the doctrinal implications of the events of September 11, 2001. They reconsidered the lines drawn between citizens and noncitizens, war and peace, the civil and criminal systems, as well as the U.S. territorial line. Participants responded to the proposition that certain entrenched historical matrices no longer adequately answer the complex questions raised in the “war on terror.” They examined the importance of government disclosure and the public’s right to know; the deportation system’s habeas corpus practices; racial profiling; the convergence of immigration and …

Examining Timely Disclosure Of Material Information To Shareholders And The Privacy Concerns Of Executive Officers, Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

On January 20, 1993, Michael Walsh, the former Chairman and CEO of Tenneco revealed to the public that he had brain cancer. This type of disclosure of health issues are arguable serious enough to affect Wall Street. Other company officials have previously made similar disclosures such as Hugh Martin, CEO of Pacific Biosciences who in October 2010 disclosed to his employees that he had cancer of the Blood (multiple myeloma), and Harry J. Pearce, the Vice President of General Motors, who disclosed in 2001 that he had leukemia.

The above public disclosures are however more the exceptions than the rule. …

Celebrating Earth Day And A Billion Acts Of Green, Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

Ufuoma Barbara Akpotaire

Today, April 22nd, is celebrated as Earth Day. The idea is to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s natural environment and was first celebrated on April 22, 1970. The idea for Earth Day is credited to Gaylord Nelson, a former U.S. Senator, after he witnessed some of the side effects of the 1969 massive oil spill in California.

The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and in 2009, the United Nations joined in the celebration by designating April 22, “International Mother Earth Day.” I recently came across a video of the …

Falling Short: Has The Sec’S Quest To Control Market Manipulation And Abusive Short-Selling Come To An End Or Has It Really Just Begun?, Richard Ramirez

Richard E. Ramirez, J.D. | CFCS

No abstract provided.

Third Party Access And Refusal To Deal In European Energy Networks: How Sector Regulation And Competition Law Meet Each Other, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper, we will analyse the issue of concurrence between competition and sector rules and the relation between parallel concepts within the two different legal frameworks. We will firstly examine Third Party Access in relation to essential facilities doctrine and refusal of access and we will identify the common points and objectives of these concepts and the extent to which they provide a context to each other’s implementation. Second, we will focus on how Commission uses sector regulation and objectives as a context within the process of implementation of competition law in the energy sector and third, we will …

Note, A Free Pass For Foreign Firms? An Assessment Of Sec And Private Enforcement Against Foreign Issuers, Natalya Shnitser

Natalya Shnitser

While proponents of the bonding hypothesis have posited that foreign firms crosslist in the United States to signal compliance with the strict U.S. corporate governance regime, these scholars have taken the enforcement of U.S. securities laws largely for granted. This Note presents an empirical examination of previously unexplored data on the enforcement of U.S. securities laws against foreign issuers. The results suggest that relative to domestic issuers, foreign issuers in the United States have benefited not only from a more lax set of rules, but also from a more forgiving public enforcement agency. At the same time, U.S. courts have …

Cyber Crimes And Effectiveness Of Laws In India To Control Them, Mubashshir Sarshar

Mubashshir Sarshar

No abstract provided.