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Securities Law Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law

Abolish Ice . . . And Then What?, Peter L. Markowitz Nov 2019

Abolish Ice . . . And Then What?, Peter L. Markowitz

Articles

In recent years, activists and then politicians began calling for the abolition of the United States’s interior immigration-enforcement agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many people have misinterpreted the call to “Abolish ICE” as merely a spontaneous rhetorical device used to express outrage at the current Administration’s brutal immigration policies. In fact, abolishing ICE is the natural extension of years of thoughtful organizing by a loose coalition of grassroots immigrant-rights groups. These organizations are serious, not only about their literal goal to eliminate the agency, but also about not replacing it with another dedicated agency of immigration police. Accordingly, …


Strengthening The Passivity Default, Ian Ayres, Edward Fox Jun 2019

Strengthening The Passivity Default, Ian Ayres, Edward Fox

Articles

In The Prudence of Passivity, Bryon Harmon and Laura Fisher (hereafter HF) argue that "passive management become the default approach for the investment of trust funds, to be abandoned only when circumstances specifically dictate the use of active management."' In this comment we argue that their thesis could be strengthened (i) by more clearly distinguishing between default law and default investment practices, (ii) by more clearly articulating their favored altering rules.


Alpha Duties: The Search For Excess Returns And Appropriate Fiduciary Duties, Ian Ayres, Edward Fox Mar 2019

Alpha Duties: The Search For Excess Returns And Appropriate Fiduciary Duties, Ian Ayres, Edward Fox

Articles

Modern finance theory and investment practice have shifted toward “passive investing.” The current consensus is that most savers should invest in mutual funds or ETFs that are (i) well-diversified, (ii) low-cost, and (iii) expose their portfolios to age-appropriate stock market risk. The law governing trustees, investment advisers, broker–dealers, 401(k) plan managers, and other investment fiduciaries has evolved to push them gently toward this consensus. But these laws still provide broad scope for fiduciaries to recommend that clients invest instead in specific assets that they believe will produce “alpha” by outperforming the market. Seeking alpha comes at a cost, however, in …


Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, And The Democratization Of Public Capital Markets, Jonathan Rohr, Aaron Wright Feb 2019

Blockchain-Based Token Sales, Initial Coin Offerings, And The Democratization Of Public Capital Markets, Jonathan Rohr, Aaron Wright

Articles

Best known for their role in the creation of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, blockchains are revolutionizing the way technology entrepreneurs finance their business enterprises. In 2017 alone, tech entrepreneurs raised over $6 billion through the sale of blockchain-based digital tokens, with some sales lasting mere seconds before selling out. In a token sale, also referred to as an “initial coin offering” or “ICO,” organizers of a project sell digital tokens to members of the public to finance the development of new technological platforms and services. After the initial sale, cryptocurrency exchanges scattered across the globe list tokens for trading and facilitate …


Prosecuting Securities Fraud Under Section 17(A)(2), Wendy Gerwick Couture Jan 2019

Prosecuting Securities Fraud Under Section 17(A)(2), Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

No abstract provided.


Principles For State Prosecution Of Securities Crime In A Dual-Regulatory, Multi-Enforcer Regime, Wendy Gerwick Couture Jan 2019

Principles For State Prosecution Of Securities Crime In A Dual-Regulatory, Multi-Enforcer Regime, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

This article proposes principles for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion when prosecuting securities crime under state law. Securities transactions in the United States are subject to a dual-regulatory, multi-enforcer regime. Securities are dually regulated by the federal government and the states, with each regulatory scheme including both civil and criminal enforcement provisions. Those laws are multi-enforced at each level by a regulator, private parties, and prosecutors. And yet, the role of state prosecution of securities crime within this regime is undertheorized, and there is little guidance for state prosecutors about how their prosecutorial decisions affect this regime. This article, drawing …


Cyan, Reverse-Erie, And The Pslra Discovery Stay In State Court, Wendy Gerwick Couture Jan 2019

Cyan, Reverse-Erie, And The Pslra Discovery Stay In State Court, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

No abstract provided.


Three Against Two: On The Difference Between Property And Contract And The Example Of Deposit Accounts In Bankruptcy, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson Jan 2019

Three Against Two: On The Difference Between Property And Contract And The Example Of Deposit Accounts In Bankruptcy, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

Articles

In Citizen's Bank v. Strumpf (1995), Justice Scalia announced that deposit accounts are not "property". Five years later, the Uniform Commercial Code was amended to make deposit accounts collateral for the depositary bank maintaining the account, thereby crowding the field previously occupied by the common law right of setoff. Security interests attach to personal "property." Security interests attach to deposit accounts. Deposit accounts, by syllogistic logic, are property. Does this mean that the UCC has overruled the Supreme Court? We argue not. A deposit account is a mere contract in the two-person universe that contract law presupposes. A deposit account …