Securities Law Commons^™

The Irrational Auditor And Irrational Liability, Adam C. Pritchard

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

This essay argues that less liability for auditors in certain areas might encourage more accurate and useful financial statements, or at least equally accurate statements at a lower cost. Audit quality is promoted by three incentives: reputation, regulation, and litigation. When we take reputation and regulation into account, exposing auditors to potentially massive liability may undermine the effectiveness of reputation and regulation, thereby diminishing integrity of audited financial statements. The relation of litigation to the other incentives that promote audit quality has become more important in light of the sea change that occurred in the regulation of the auditing profession …

In Praise Of Investor Irrationality, Gregory La Blanc, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

How should a market filled with investors who chronically make bad investments, but is nevertheless efficient, be regulated? A growing body of evidence suggests that this is the state of most securities markets; investors rely on cognitive processes that produce systematically bad choices, and yet the market remains largely efficient. In fact, cognitive errors might be essential to their efficient operation. Even investors who make systematic errors also often possess real and unique information that can contribute to accurate pricing of securities. If such investors became mindful of their limited ability to distinguish between real information and erroneous information, they …

Fraud By Hindsight, G. Mitu Gulati, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Donald C. Langevoort

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In securities-fraud cases, courts routinely admonish plaintiffs that they are not permitted to rely on allegations of "fraud by hindsight." In effect, courts disfavor plaintiffs' use of evidence of bad outcomes to support claims of securities fraud. Disfavoring hindsight evidence appears to tap into a well known, well-understood, and intuitively accessible problem of human judgment of "20/20 hindsight." Events come to seem predictable after unfolding, and hence, bad outcomes must have been predicted by people in a position to make forecasts. Psychologists call this phenomenon the hindsight bias. The popularity of this doctrine among judges deciding securities cases suggests that …

Regulation Nms: Has The Sec Exceeded Its Congressional Mandate To Facilitate A “National Market System” In Securities Trading?, Dale A. Oesterle

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

The SEC is currently holding hearings on sweeping changes to the micro-structure of the country's securities trading markets - modifying the trade through rule, for example. Professor Oesterle argues that the SEC should not be in the business of so structuring the country's securities markets in the first place. In the piece he chronicles the SEC's expansive interpretation of its power under Congress's 1975 National Market System Amendments to the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act and questions whether Congress intended to grant the SEC such a mandate.

The Elusive Balance Between Investor Protection And Wealth Creation, Barbara Black, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Pace Investor Rights Project (PIRP), launched in the fall of 20033 as an expansion of Pace Law School's ground-breaking Securities Arbitration Clinic, seeks to foster increased scholarly interest on topics related to investor justice in the regulatory, arbitral and judicial arenas. The Project thus produced the Investor Rights Symposium, which took place on the grounds of the Judicial Institute at Pace Law School on March 31 and April 1, 2005, to bring together academics, regulators, practitioners, investors' advocates and students to explore the precarious balance between investor protection and wealth creation. The scholarship that follows in this volume reflects …

Developing A Law/Business Collaboration Through Pace's Securities Arbitration Clinic, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article details an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Securities Arbitration Clinic at Pace Law School (“SAC”) and the graduate program at Pace University's Lubin School of Business, designed and initiated by the authors. The purpose of the collaboration is to provide a co-curricular learning experience to both J.D. and graduate business students1 while enhancing the pro bono legal services delivered by SAC to its clients. Part I of this article details the history of SAC before the authors initiated the collaboration, and the reasons SAC needed financial expertise. Part II of this article describes models of interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly between …

Do Institutions Matter? The Impact Of The Lead Plaintiff Provision Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, A. C. Pritchard

All Faculty Scholarship

When Congress enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995 (“PSLRA”), the Act’s “lead plaintiff” provision was the centerpiece of its efforts to increase investor control over securities fraud class actions. The lead plaintiff provision alters the balance of power between investors and class counsel by creating a presumption that the investor with the largest financial stake in the case will serve as lead plaintiff. The lead plaintiff then chooses class counsel and, at least in theory, negotiates the terms of counsel’s compensation.

Congress’s stated purpose in enacting the lead plaintiff provision was to encourage institutional investors—pension funds, mutual …

The New Dividend Puzzle, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.