Securities Law Commons^™

On The Role And Regulation Of Proxy Advisors, Paul Rose

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In anticipation of proxy season-the springtime ritual where companies prepare and deliver proxy statements in preparation for annual shareholder meetings-U.S. public companies typically reexamine their corporate governance structures and policies. Many corporate governance structures that were acceptable ten years ago are now considered outmoded or even evidence of managerial entrenchment. For example, consider the classified board of directors. In recent years, many companies have shifted from a classified board of directors to an annually elected board. A company might adopt an annually-elected board structure for a number of reasons. A classified board can serve as an entrenchment device, for instance, …

The Road Not Taken: Rethinking Securities Regulation And The Case For Federal Merit Review, Daniel J. Morrissey

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hedge Funds And Public Disclosure Requirements: Is The Sec Telling Secrets?, James B. Robertson

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hedge Fund Regulation: The Amended Investment Advisers Act Does Not Protect Investors From The Problems Created By Hedge Funds, Sean M. Donahue

Cleveland State Law Review

Hedge funds are a viable investment alternative for financially sophisticated investors. However, because traditional hedge funds and funds of funds are unsuitable for average investors, these investors should be restricted from making such investments. Regardless of who invests in hedge funds, advisers of these entities must be regulated to assure that they do not commit fraud. In addition to monitoring advisers, the SEC must limit hedge funds' use of leverage to assure that market collapse does not occur. Part II of this Note describes the history and development of hedge funds. Part III illustrates the current problems facing the hedge …

Responses By The Federal Communications Commission To Worldcom's Accounting Fraud, Warren G. Lavey

Federal Communications Law Journal

WorldCom's disclosure of billions of dollars of financial fraud on June 25, 2002 challenged the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") in several major ways. The FCC proclaimed its commitment to enforce its rules to protect consumers against service discontinuance as well as the priority of rooting out corporate fraud. The FCC's rules required WorldCom to file accurate financial information and to show that it had financial and character qualifications necessary to hold FCC licenses. Despite numerous related proceedings and other actions in 2001 and early 2002, the FCC had not detected nor deterred WorldCom's fraud. After the disclosure, WorldCom continued its …

Building A Strong Subnational Debt Market, Paul S. Maco

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Decentralization of responsibility for finance and growing infrastructure needs are two trends that are expected to stimulate a growth in government borrowing at the sub-national level. Statistics for the first half of 2000 show a significant increase in sub-national debt volume, with global public finance, excluding Canada and the United States, more than doubling that of the first half of 1999.

Multinational Regulatory Competition And Single-Stock Futures , Frank Partnoy

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Whereas these first two forms of regulatory competition are well documented and covered in the legal literature, the third form - which I call "multinational regulatory competition" - is newer and more difficult to characterize. Accordingly, any claims about future regulatory competition in this form necessarily are speculative. By "multinational regulatory competition," I mean competition occurring when a group of regulators from more than one sovereign forms a partnership as a multinational regulator and then seeks to compete with other groups of regulators, also formed from more than one sovereign. There is some recent empirical evidence that regulatory trends in …

Disclosure In Global Securities Offerings: Analysis Of Jurisdictional Approaches, Commonality And Reciprocity, Marc I. Steinberg, Lee E. Michaels

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article presents a summary of the regulatory systems currently in place in the world's major markets. This summary focuses primarily on the disclosure rules that must be followed by a company undertaking an equity offering in each country. Certain significant accounting standards also are discussed. After comparing the different disclosure frameworks, the article addresses efforts that have been made to regulate or standardize the world's markets on a more international level. Finally, the article discusses where we should go next in the quest to create greater harmony in a truly global marketplace.

Securitization Of State Ownership: Chinese Securities Law, Minkang Gu, Robert C. Art

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this article establishes the scope of analysis and defines the Chinese use of the term "security," which is more limited than under American law. Parts II and III briefly examine the history of Chinese securities laws and the understanding of securities by the Chinese people. Part IV focuses on the government's motivations in establishing the securities markets. Part V discusses the distinctively Chinese approach of classifying shares according to the characteristics and nationality of permitted shareholders. Part VI addresses the future development of Chinese securities markets. The conclusion reflects on the significance of western forms of securities …

Decreasing The Costs Of Jurisdictional Gridlock: Merger Of The Securities And Exchange Commission And The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mark Frederick Hoffman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Jurisdictional conflict exists between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), primarily due to the language of the 1974 CFTC Act. This Act grants the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction to regulate certain financial instruments which, given the increasing complexity and "hybrid" nature of such instruments, might simultaneously be subject to SEC regulation. This Note first explores the history of the two agencies and the statutory language giving rise to the jurisdictional conflict. This Note then examines several instances of jurisdictional conflict that resulted in extensive costs for the respective agencies and the United States' financial …

An Examination Of The Current Status Of Rating Agencies And Proposals For Limited Oversight Of Such Agencies, Francis A. Bottini Jr.

San Diego Law Review

This Comment analyzes the market for ratings of both financial securities and insurance companies, and finds significant problems with rating agencies, such as lethargy in changing ratings, political influence, unsolicited ratings, and inaccurate ratings. To ensure that the federal securities laws continue to protect investors, this Comment recommends limited oversight of rating agencies. It proposes that Congress enact legislation granting the Securities and Exchange Commission explicit authority to mandate that all nationally recognized statistical rating organizations register with the SEC, and to establish minimum standards for their designation. Finally, the Comment examines First Amendment concerns associated with the regulation of …

Protecting Nonshareholder Interests In The Market For Corporate Control: A Role For State Takeover Statutes, Frank J. Garcia

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note describes a phenomenon of modern corporate activity first identified over fifty years ago as the "separation of ownership and control." This separation gives rise to the need for a governing corporate norm; recognizing the normative aspect of this phenomenon has direct implications for the takeover debate.

Part II analyzes the problem of a target board's fiduciary duty as the modern version of the fundamental normative issue of corporate law. It argues that the norm of shareholder wealth maximization, assumed as the starting point by those most in favor of an active and minimally regulated control …

Bank Securities Activities And The Need To Separate Trust Departments From Large Commercial Banks, Thomas J. Schoenbaum

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article (1) analyzes the traditional Glass-Steagall Act restrictions on banks and the leading case of Investment Company Institute v. Camp, where the Supreme Court held that the offering by commercial banks of commingled agency accounts violated the Glass-Steagall Act prohibition against underwriting securities, (2) considers the. developments since that decision, and (3) offers suggestions on an approach to devising solutions to the policy questions involved.

Disclosure By Issuers Of Municipal Securities: An Analysis Of Recent Proposals And A Suggested Approach, Robert D. Tuke

Vanderbilt Law Review

The following considerations impacting on the disclosure issue have been developed in this Note: the uniqueness of the municipal securities industry, owing to the diverse natures of the securities, the wide variety of issuers, and the particular means of marketing the securities; the special circumstances created for underwriters by the competitive bidding process; the varied roles of other participants in the distribution process--fiscal agents, bond counsel, governmental accountants; the existing state machinery for regulation and control; the practical limitations on the SEC--both in staff capacity and expertise; the need for uniformity in disclosure to prevent weakened marketability of municipal securities …

Municipal Bonds And The Federal Securities Laws: The Results Of Forty Years Of Indirect Regulation, Bruce N. Hawthorne

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent abuses occurring in the municipal bond markets have threatened investor confidence and caused Congress to reevaluate its original decision to exempt these securities from the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This Note will analyze in some depth the securities regulation aspects of the municipal securities markets. First, because an understanding of the unique nature of municipal securities and their markets is essential, a description will be made of the characteristics of municipal bonds and municipal bond purchasers, the participants in the municipal securities industry, and the new issue and trading markets for municipal …

Reform Of The Florida Securities Law, James Mofsky

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Proposed Regulation Of Limited Partnership Investment Programs, Ivan J. Schell

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Limited partners have long been admonished to scrutinize potential investments; this advice is often ignored, however, by investors eager to reap quick profits. Furthermore, the proliferation of limited partnership interests in a single enterprise diffuses the focus of investor vigilance and increases the potential for undetected abuses. Thus a need for regulation, either governmental or private, has developed. Currently the Uniform Limited Partnership Act and blue sky laws provide some control of limited partnership abuses at the state level. On the interstate level, the Midwest Securities Commissioners Association, the National Association of Securities Dealers, and the Securities and Exchange Commission …

Introduction To Symposium On Securities, Manuel F. Cohen

Vanderbilt Law Review

Students of the securities markets, and of relevant law and regulation, will wonder whether another symposium is worthwhile. Recent years have seen a proliferation of symposia, meetings, conferences, taped messages, books, pamphlets, and other materials designed to educate the uninitiated or to provide an opportunity for debate among the sophisticated concerning the important issues of the day. This, of course, assumes that there are important issues, and merit in the continued effort at education...This symposium does not reach all the issues. It does, however, deal with certain important ones and suggests quite emphatically the need for re-examination of all. To …

Insider Trading And The Law Professors, Henry G. Manne

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Insider Trading and the Stock Market' appeared in November, 1966, I was fully prepared for a goodly amount of disagreement. I was not prepared however for the emotional, almost hostile response my book received from some members of the academic community. This is not to say that all the reviews by law professors were unsympathetic and emotional in tone. Indeed the majority of them were not, and while critical reviews outnumbered favorable ones, most were in some degree mixed, and the tone was generally scholarly, impersonal, and in many cases constructive But the response to my book in the …

Securities Regulation In Selected European Countries, Mitchell Brock

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In approaching the subject of securities regulation in selected European countries, I will not attempt to provide a detailed description of the existing arrangements in the principal European countries. I shall of course to some degree descend to the "nitty gritty" of concrete details to give to airy generalizations a local reality, but my principal objective will be to discuss the economic context, the structure of the capital markets in which the regulatory authorities are performing their functions.

This economic context is pertinent to an understanding of why the pattern of regulation differs in many respects from that existing in …

The Expanding Jurisdiction Of The Securities And Exchange Commission: Variable Annuities And Bank Collective Investment Funds, John W. Erickson

Michigan Law Review

The Securities and Exchange Commission is presently attempting to assert jurisdiction over certain aspects of two industries traditionally exempt from federal securities regulation-insurance and banking. The SEC claims that two recently developed investment vehicles-variable annuities in the insurance field and pooled funds of managing agency accounts in the banking field-are virtually the same as mutual funds, which are subject to SEC regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940. (A mutual fund is essentially a fund (usually in corporate form), the participants' contributions to which are collectively invested in a portfolio of securities, each participation representing a pro rata interest …

Antiturst Law-Exemptions For Regulated Industries - Applicability Of The Antitrust Laws To Stock Exchanges, Peter D. Byrnes S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, the New York Stock Exchange, directed its members to discontinue their direct private wire connections with plaintiffs who were non-member brokers. These private wire connections were utilized primarily for facilitating transactions in the over-the-counter market. Repeated requests by plaintiffs for reinstatement were ignored, and the defendant refused to apprise the plaintiffs of the reasons for its action. Plaintiffs then brought suit, seeking damages and injunctive relief pursuant to sections 4 and 16 of the Clayton Act. Maintaining that defendant's conduct violated section 1 of the Sherman Act, plaintiffs moved for summary judgment. Held, motion granted.6 Defendant does not …

Securities Regulation-Civil Liability Under Rule X-10b-5 For Fraud In The Purchase Or Sale Of Securities, J. David Voss S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

On May 21, 1942 the Securities and Exchange Commission, pursuant to section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, promulgated rule X-10B-5.2 The purpose of the new rule was apparently to close a loophole in the then existing pattern of regulation of the purchase and sale of securities. The loophole resulted from a gap between section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, which prohibits the use of fraud in the sale of securities by any person, and section 15(c)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which prohibits the use of fraud in the sale or purchase of …

Constitutional Law -Validity Of Registration Provisions Of Public Utility Holding Company Act Of 1935, Gerald L. Stoetzer

Michigan Law Review

In recognition of the abuses that arise from the monopolistic tendencies of holding companies in the public utility field and of the inability of the respective states to exert the necessary control thereof, Congress has attempted to draw certain of the public utility holding companies within the inquisitorial and regulatory control of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, reciting in great detail facts showing the necessity for control of holding companies having as subsidiaries electric and gas operating utilities, indicates that Congress regarded the uncontrolled utility holding company as "an agency which, …