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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law
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 …
Democratizing Startups, Seth C. Oranburg
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 …
Broker-Dealer: A Fiduciary By Any Other Name?, William Alan Nelson Ii
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 …
Bridgefunding Is Crowdfunding For Startups Across The Private Equity Gap, Seth C. Oranburg
Bridgefunding Is Crowdfunding For Startups Across The Private Equity Gap, Seth C. Oranburg
Seth C Oranburg
Title III of the JOBS Act of 2012, which attempts to encourage entrepreneurship by allowing startups and small business to sell stock to the general public over the Internet through “crowdfunding,” is completely backwards. Its ceiling should be a floor—the $1 million limit should be inverted. By capping startups at raising $1 million from crowdfunding, the JOBS Act does not address the private equity gap, a fundamental problem in startup markets, and exposes unsophisticated investors to risk and fraud. This Article presents a regulatory framework premised on “bridgefunding,” an approach that this article develops to protect new investors by encouraging …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
The Regulation Of U.S. Money Market Funds: Lessons From Europe, Latoya C. Brown
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 …
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 …