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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law

Closing Wall Street’S Commodity And Swaps Betting Parlors: Legal Remedies To Combat Needlessly Gambling Up The Price Of Crude Oil Beyond What Market Fundamentals Dictate, Michael Greenberger Sep 2012

Closing Wall Street’S Commodity And Swaps Betting Parlors: Legal Remedies To Combat Needlessly Gambling Up The Price Of Crude Oil Beyond What Market Fundamentals Dictate, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

The price of crude oil in the futures markets has oscillated wildly during the past five years. Although these price swings may partly be a result of insufficient supply meeting large demand for oil, economic data demonstrate that market fundamentals have in fact remained in equilibrium. An overwhelming number of market participants, financial analysts, and academics have instead shown that unregulated excessive speculation in the oil futures markets is to blame. Such excessive speculation is a result of the financialization of commodities, which has exacerbated price swings in oil because the speculative upward betting causes artificially high prices that do …


The Extraterritorial Provisions Of The Dodd-Frank Act Protects U.S. Taxpayers From Worldwide Bailouts, Michael Greenberger Mar 2012

The Extraterritorial Provisions Of The Dodd-Frank Act Protects U.S. Taxpayers From Worldwide Bailouts, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

The significant extraterritorial scope of the derivatives regulation within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act promises to foster rigorous international standards for financial regulation that will restore transparency and stability to the global derivatives market. At present, that market exceeds $700 trillion notional value, or over ten times the world GDP. Despite opposition from Wall Street to the present extraterritorial application of almost all of Dodd-Frank’s derivatives regulation, the plain language of the statute requires implementing that regulation on an appropriate extraterritorial basis in order to protect U.S. taxpayers from bailing out financial institutions engaging in foreign …


Implementing Dodd-Frank: A Review Of The Cftc‟S Rulemaking Process: Testimony, Michael Greenberger Mar 2012

Implementing Dodd-Frank: A Review Of The Cftc‟S Rulemaking Process: Testimony, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

The Relationship of Unregulated OTC Derivatives to the Meltdown. It is now accepted wisdom that it was the non-transparent, poorly capitalized, and almost wholly unregulated over-the-counter (“OTC”) derivatives market that lit the fuse that exploded the highly vulnerable worldwide economy in the fall of 2008. Because tens of trillions of dollars of these financial products were pegged to the economic performance of an overheated and highly inflated housing market, the sudden collapse of that market triggered under-capitalized or non-capitalized OTC derivative guarantees of the subprime housing investments. Moreover, the many undercapitalized insurers of that collapsing market had other multi-trillion dollar …


Diversifying Clearinghouse Ownership In Order To Safeguard Free And Open Access To The Derivatives Clearing Market, Michael Greenberger Mar 2012

Diversifying Clearinghouse Ownership In Order To Safeguard Free And Open Access To The Derivatives Clearing Market, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

Implementing the rigorous governance and ownership standards established in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act3 for derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) will promote free and open access to clearing and reduce systemic risk within what is now the $700 trillion notional value derivatives market. Such standards are central to and advance the key regulatory tenants of Dodd-Frank: i.e., to restore transparency, capital adequacy, and accountability to what was the unregulated over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market by ensuring that swaps are cleared through financially sound DCOs. Also, these rules will promote competition by curtailing large swap dealers‘ (SDs) control over …


Commodity Swap Position Limit Rule May Help Return Price-Risk Management, Michael Greenberger Oct 2011

Commodity Swap Position Limit Rule May Help Return Price-Risk Management, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

No abstract provided.


Will The Cftc Defy Congress's Mandate To Stop Excessive Speculation In Commodity Markets And Aid And Abet Hyperinflation In World Food And Energy Prices: Analysis Of The Cftc's Proposed Rules On Speculative Position Limits, Michael Greenberger Apr 2011

Will The Cftc Defy Congress's Mandate To Stop Excessive Speculation In Commodity Markets And Aid And Abet Hyperinflation In World Food And Energy Prices: Analysis Of The Cftc's Proposed Rules On Speculative Position Limits, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

On January 26, 2011, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Position Limits for Derivatives pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The proposed rules are designed to implement the historic Congressional mandate of the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended by Section 737 of the Dodd-Frank Act, to ban excessive speculation from the derivatives market, i.e., the speculation which exceeds the need for liquidity by commercial handlers hedging price risk in these markets. Section 737 is the result of multi-year consideration by Congress, during which a strong consensus was reached there …


Overwhelming A Financial Regulatory Black Hole With Legislative Sunlight: Dodd-Frank’S Attack On Systemic Economic Destabilization Caused By An Unregulated Multi-Trillion Dollar Derivatives Market, Michael Greenberger Feb 2011

Overwhelming A Financial Regulatory Black Hole With Legislative Sunlight: Dodd-Frank’S Attack On Systemic Economic Destabilization Caused By An Unregulated Multi-Trillion Dollar Derivatives Market, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

It is now accepted wisdom that it was the non-transparent, poorly capitalized and almost wholly unregulated over-the-counter (“OTC”) derivatives market that lit the fuse that exploded the highly vulnerable worldwide economy in the fall of 2008.[1] Because tens of trillions of dollars of these financial products were pegged to the economic performance of an overheated and highly inflated housing market, the sudden collapse of that market triggered under-capitalized OTC derivative guarantees of the subprime housing market; and the guarantors’ multi-trillion dollar interconnectedness with thousands of other OTC derivatives’ counterparties within that OTC market (through interest rate, currency, foreign exchange, and …


Is Our Economy Safe? A Proposal For Assessing The Success Of Swaps Regulation Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Michael Greenberger Oct 2010

Is Our Economy Safe? A Proposal For Assessing The Success Of Swaps Regulation Under The Dodd-Frank Act, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

On July 21, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law. The central goal of the Dodd-Frank Act is to ensure that all standardized derivates products are regulated. The Act requires these trades be fully transparent and backed by adequate capital. The central question for evaluating the success of the Dodd-Frank Act is simple but profound: Has the Dodd-Frank Act made the economy any safer from the threat of another economic meltdown? This paper introduces a number of metrics that can be used to assess the success of the Dodd-Frank Act.


The Role Of Derivatives In The Financial Crisis – Testimony Before The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, June 30, 2010, Michael Greenberger Aug 2010

The Role Of Derivatives In The Financial Crisis – Testimony Before The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, June 30, 2010, Michael Greenberger

Michael Greenberger

It is now almost universally accepted that the unregulated multi-trillion dollar OTC CDS market helped foment a mortgage crisis, then a credit crisis, and finally a ―once-in-a-century systemic financial crisis that, but for huge U.S. taxpayer interventions, would have in the fall of 2008 led the world economy into a devastating Depression. Before explaining below the manner in which credit default swaps fomented this crisis, it worth citing in the margin those many economists, regulators, market observers, and financial columnists who have described the central role unregulated CDS played in the crisis. Even those once skeptical of arguments about the …