Securities Law Commons^™

The Howey Test: Are Crypto-Assets Investment Contracts?, Justin Henning

University of Miami Business Law Review

With innovation always comes unknowns. Blockchain technology and crypto–assets are no different. Often times, innovators are so worried about getting their product to market or scaling at mass that they overlook the legal ramifications of their innovations. As Mark Zuckerberg infamously said, “move fast and break things.” Facebook was in no way alone in this style of innovation. However, with respect to crypto–assets, the SEC has stepped in and is attempting to prevent the “break things” aspect. One of the major issues relating to crypto–assets is that many people still do not understand what they are, or how the underlying …

Insider Trading: Are Insolvent Firms Different?, Andrew Verstein

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Federal law restricts insider trading. Yet these restrictions operate differently on insolvent or bankrupt firms. The law is more constraining in some respects: federal law extensively regulates the trading of residual claims in solvent firms but not insolvent firms. However, the law is more constraining in other respects: insider trading law does little to limit debt-trading at solvent firms, but a bankruptcy enmeshes all creditors in a web of insider trading rules. This Article identifies insolvency’s economic and legal influence on insider trading law and then normatively evaluates this transformation.

Backstop, Not Bailout: The Case For Preserving The Orderly Liquidation Authority Under Dodd-Frank, Mark R. Maciuch

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The Trump Administration and Republicans have initiated efforts to repeal certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), one of which is the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) under Title II of Dodd-Frank. Critics of the OLA argue that it enables, rather than prevents, future bailouts funded by taxpayers. These critics are concerned with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) discretion to decide when and how to resolve distressed financial firms, as well as the FDIC’s access to large amounts of funds from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to carry out these functions. Proponents of …

The Meaning Of Capital In The Twenty-First Century, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

America is on a path towards a level of both wealth and income inequality unparalleled in recorded history. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century summarizes and conveys the work of Piketty and many co-authors, over many decades, looking at the structure of income and wealth inequality across many nations and centuries. This review essay builds on Piketty’s ambitions as well as his data, in order to put forth a better solution: one that accepts and even embraces the facts of unequal ownership of capital, but changes the social meaning of those facts to avoid the social harms that follow …

Taxing Wealth Seriously, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

The social and political problems of wealth inequality in America are severe and getting worse. A surprise is that the U.S. tax system, as is, is a significant cause of these problems, not a cure for them. The tax-law doctrines that allow those who already have financial wealth to live, luxuriously and tax-free, or to pass on their wealth tax-free to heirs, are simple. The applicable legal doctrines have been in place for nearly a century under the income tax, the primary social tool for addressing matters of economic inequality. The analytic pathways to reform are easy to see once …

The Inevitable United States Adoption Of Ifrs: How And Why The United States Should Be Prepared, Erika M. Tribuzi

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In an age where technology makes the world smaller and business transactions happen by the microsecond, both private and public entities have utilized global standards. These standards are often voluntary and span many different industries. In the twenty-first century, financial reporting standards have not been immune toward the pull for global uniformity. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are a set of international financial reporting standards that countries can choose to adopt in full or in part. Currently, there are 143 countries that have adopted IFRS in some capacity. This Note addresses the voluntary nature of global standards in the …

Reanalyzing Cost-Benefit Analysis: Toward A Framework Of Function(S) And Form(S), Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

The analysis herein arises from the collision course between the sweeping reforms mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and a single sentence of the U.S. Code, adopted nearly fifteen years earlier and largely forgotten ever since. Few were likely thinking of Section 106 of the National Securities Market Improvement Act when the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted on July 21, 2010. As applied by the D.C. Circuit less than a year later in Business Roundtable v. SEC, however, that provision’s peculiar requirement of cost-benefit analysis could prove the new legislation’s undoing.

To help navigate …

Making Markets: Network Effects And The Role Of Law In The Creation Of Strong Securities Markets, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

As Russia and other formerly socialist states construct market economies, the appearance of strong securities markets remains an unfulfilled expectation. Notwithstanding broad privatization of state-owned enterprises and the elimination of industrial subsidies - essential precursors to demand for capital-raising securities markets - stock markets in Central and Eastern Europe remain illiquid, inefficient, and unreliable.

Strong securities markets do not, it seems, neatly follow from the welfare-maximizing behavior of individuals and institutions. Nor can the appearance of securities markets be effectively dictated by government decree. Post-communist securities market transition therefore presents a puzzle: Do markets emerge, or must they be created? …

Law's Signal: A Cueing Theory Of Law In Market Transition, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

Securities markets are commonly assumed to spring forth at the intersection of an adequate supply of, and a healthy demand for, investment capital. In recent years, however, seemingly failed market transitions - the failure of new markets to emerge and of existing markets to evolve - have called this assumption into question. From the developed economies of Germany and Japan to the developing countries of central and eastern Europe, securities markets have exhibited some inability to take root. The failure of U.S. securities markets, and particularly the New York Stock Exchange, to make greater use of computerized trading, communications, and …

Dialectical Regulation, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

While theories of regulation abound, woefully inadequate attention has been given to growing patterns of "intersystemic" and "dialectical" regulation in the world today. In this rapidly expanding universe of interactions, independent regulatory agencies, born of autonomous jurisdictions, nonetheless face a combination of jurisdictional overlap with, and regulatory dependence on, one another. Here, the cross-jurisdictional interaction of regulators is no longer the voluntary interaction embraced by transnationalists; it is, instead, an unavoidable reality of acknowledgement and engagement, potentially culminating in the integration of discrete sets of regulatory rules into a collective whole.

Such patterns of regulatory engagement are increasingly evident, across …

From Federal Rules To Intersystemic Governance In Securities Regulation, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

In this brief essay, prepared as part of a symposium on The New Federalism: Plural Governance in a Decentered World, I explore the regulatory dynamics at work: (1) in the operation of Securities Exchange Act Rule 14a-8, (2) in the interventions of then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in the national securities markets, and (3) in recent steps by the Securities and Exchange Commission to reconcile U.S. and international accounting standards. In each case, a distinct dynamic of regulatory interaction - what I term intersystemic governance - can be observed. In such cases, overlapping jurisdiction combines with various sources of interdependence to …

Proxy Access Voting: Evaluating Proxy Access And The Recent Phenomenon Of Corporations Adopting Shareholder Protective Policies, Danielle Vukovich

San Diego International Law Journal

Shareholders hold a financial stake in a corporation, and therefore are often viewed as owners of the corporation and believed to be in control for all corporate actions. However, their powers are circumscribed. Board of directors committees nominate directors to serve the corporation and these directors have the power to select the corporation’s officers. The committees provide shareholders a slate of proposed directors that are voted on and approved at the annual shareholder meeting. Shareholders may also propose their own slate of directors, but this typically requires a proxy contest, which can be expensive due to the costs both associated …

Whistleblowers—A Case Study In The Regulatory Cycle For Financial Services, Ronald H. Filler, Jerry W. Markham

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were directed by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank) to create whistleblower protection programs that reward informants with massive bounty payments. At the time of its passage, the Dodd-Frank Act was a highly controversial statute that was passed on partisan lines. Its whistleblowing authority was one of its “most contentious provisions.” As the result of the 2016 elections, the Dodd-Frank Act has come under renewed attack in Congress and by the new Trump administration. The stage is being set for possible repeal of …

Financing Green: Reforming Green Bond Regulation In The United States, Echo Kaixi Wang

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In recent years, green bonds have emerged as a way for the financial industry to contribute to environmentally friendly projects, combat climate change, and provide funds for green infrastructures across the world. While the green bond market has expanded drastically across large nations in Europe and Asia, market growth has stalled in the United States, in part due to a lack of promising regulations in the United States. Existing regulations on green bond issuance in the United States only exists in the form of non-binding international guidelines. This Note reviews the benefits and potentials of green bonds both as an …

Unicorns, Guardians, And The Concentration Of The U.S. Equity Markets, Amy Deen Westbrook, David A. Westbrook

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Resourcing Green Technologies Through Smart Mineral Enterprise Development: A Case Analysis Of Cobalt, Saleem Ali, Perrine Toledano, Nicolas Maennling, Nathaniel Hoffman, Lola Aganga

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement requires the world to adopt ‘green technologies’ such as renewable energies and electric transportation at an unprecedented scale. While many countries have implemented policies to spur the adoption of such technologies, a lack of focus has been placed on the sourcing of minerals that are required as inputs. As a result, there is likely to be a significant deficit that may constrain the adoption of green technologies.

In this report, we argue that a neglected area in addressing the mineral scarcity challenge is the private sector’s current trajectory for geological mineral exploration and …

Are Charter Schools The Second Coming Of Enron?: An Examination Of The Gatekeepers That Protect Against Dangerous Related-Party Transactions In The Charter School Sectors, Preston C. Green Iii, Bruce D. Baker, Joseph O. Oluwole

Indiana Law Journal

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW OF ENRON

A. ENRON AND DEREGULATION

B. THE LJM SPES

C. ENRON’S COLLAPSE

II: ENRON’S GATEKEEPER PROBLEMS

A. ARTHUR ANDERSEN

B. INDEPENDENT ANALYSTS

C. CREDIT RATING AGENCIES

D. ENRON’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

E. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (SEC)

III: CHARTER SCHOOLS AND RELATED-PARTY TRANSACTIONS

A. CHARTER SCHOOL DEREGULATION AND PRIVATE INVESTORS

B. EXAMPLES OF ENRON-LIKE RELATED-PARTY TRANSACTIONS

1. IMAGINE SCHOOLS

2. IVY ACADEMIA CHARTER SCHOOL

3. AMERICAN INDIAN MODEL CHARTER SCHOOLS

4. GRAND TRAVERSE ACADEMY

5. PENNSYLVANIA CYBER CHARTER SCHOOL

C. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, RELATED-PARTY TRANSACTIONS, AND THE NEED FOR STRONG GATEKEEPING

IV: CHARTER SCHOOL GATEKEEPERS

A. AUDITORS …

How Investors Can (And Can't) Create Social Value, Paul Brest, Ronald J. Gilson, Mark A. Wolfson

Faculty Scholarship

Most investors throughout the world have a single goal: to earn the highest risk- adjusted financial returns. They would not accept a lower financial return from an investment that also produced social benefits.

More recently, an increasing number of socially-motivated investors have goals beyond maximizing returns. They also seek to align their investments with their social values (value alignment), and some also seek to cause the companies in which they invest to create more social value as a result of their investment (social value creation). We show in this essay that while it is relatively easy to achieve value alignment, …

The Evolution Of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology, J. Brad Bernthal

Publications

There has been an explosion in new types of startup finance instruments. Whereas twenty years ago preferred stock dominated the field, startup companies and investors now use at least eight different instruments—six of which have only become widely used in the last decade. Legal scholars have yet to reflect upon the proliferation of instrument types in the aggregate. Notably missing is a way to organize instruments into a common framework that highlights their similarities and differences.

This Article makes four contributions. First, it catalogues the variety of startup investment forms. I describe novel instruments, such as revenue-based financing, which remain …

Informed Trading And Its Regulation, Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

Informed trading – trading on information not yet reflected in a stock’s price – drives the stock market. Such informational advantages can arise from astute analysis of varied pieces of public news, from just released public information, or from confidential information from inside a firm. We argue that these disparate types of trading are all better regulated as part of the broader phenomenon of informed trading. Informed trading makes share prices more accurate, enhancing the allocation of capital, but also makes markets less liquid, which is costly to the efficiency of trade. Informed trading thus poses a fundamental trade-off in …

Foreword: Bankruptcy’S New And Old Frontiers, William W. Bratton, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This Symposium marks the fortieth anniversary of the enactment of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code (the “1978 Code” or the “Code”) with an extended look at seismic changes that currently are reshaping Chapter 11 reorganization. Today’s typical Chapter 11 case looks radically different than did the typical case in the Code’s early years. In those days, Chapter 11 afforded debtors a cozy haven. Most everything that mattered occurred within the context of the formal proceeding, where the debtor enjoyed agenda control, a leisurely timetable, and judicial solicitude. The safe haven steadily disappeared over time, displaced by a range of countervailing forces …

The Logic And Limits Of Event Studies In Securities Fraud Litigation, Jill E. Fisch, Jonah B. Gelbach, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

Event studies have become increasingly important in securities fraud litigation after the Supreme Court’s decision in Halliburton II. Litigants have used event study methodology, which empirically analyzes the relationship between the disclosure of corporate information and the issuer’s stock price, to provide evidence in the evaluation of key elements of federal securities fraud, including materiality, reliance, causation, and damages. As the use of event studies grows and they increasingly serve a gatekeeping function in determining whether litigation will proceed beyond a preliminary stage, it will be critical for courts to use them correctly.

This Article explores an array of …

Regulating Robo Advice Across The Financial Services Industry, Tom Baker, Benedict G. C. Dellaert

All Faculty Scholarship

Automated financial product advisors – “robo advisors” – are emerging across the financial services industry, helping consumers choose investments, banking products, and insurance policies. Robo advisors have the potential to lower the cost and increase the quality and transparency of financial advice for consumers. But they also pose significant new challenges for regulators who are accustomed to assessing human intermediaries. A well-designed robo advisor will be honest and competent, and it will recommend only suitable products. Because humans design and implement robo advisors, however, honesty, competence, and suitability cannot simply be assumed. Moreover, robo advisors pose new scale risks that …

Stock Market Manipulation And Its Regulation, Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, Gabriel Rauterberg

Articles

More than eighty years after federal law first addressed stock market manipulation, the federal courts remain fractured by disagreement and confusion concerning manipulation law's most foundational issues. There remains, for example, a sharp split among the federal circuits concerning manipulation law's central question: Whether trading activity alone can ever be considered illegal manipulation under federal law? Academics have been similarly confused-economists and legal scholars cannot agree on whether manipulation is even possible in principle, let alone on how to properly address it in practice.

The Price Of Law: The Case Of The Eurozone's Collective Action Clauses, Elena Carletti, Paolo Colla, Mitu Gulati, Steven Ongena

Faculty Scholarship

Do markets value contract protections? And does the quality of a legal system affect such valuations? To answer these questions we exploit a unique experiment whereby, after January 1, 2013, newly issued sovereign bonds of Eurozone countries under domestic law had to include Collective Action Clauses (CACs) specifying the minimum vote needed to modify payment terms. We find that CAC bonds trade at lower yields than otherwise similar no-CAC bonds; and that the quality of the legal system matters for this differential. Hence, markets appear to see CACs as providing protection against the legal risk embedded in domestic-law sovereign bonds.

The Hausmann-Gorky Effect, Mitu Gulati, Ugo Panizza

Faculty Scholarship

For over a century, legal scholars have debated the question of what to do about the debts incurred by despotic governments; asking whether successor non-despotic governments should have to pay them. That debate has gone nowhere. This paper examines whether an Op Ed written by Harvard economist, Ricardo Hausmann, in May 2017, may have shown an alternative path to the goal of increasing the cost of borrowing for despotic governments. Hausmann, in his Op Ed, had sought to produce a pricing penalty on the entire Venezuelan debt stock by trying to shame JPMorgan into removing Venezuelan bonds from its emerging …

The New Bond Workouts, William W. Bratton, Adam J. Levitin

All Faculty Scholarship

Bond workouts are a famously dysfunctional method of debt restructuring, ridden with opportunistic and coercive behavior by bondholders and bond issuers. Yet since 2008 bond workouts have quietly started to work. A cognizable portion of the restructuring market has shifted from bankruptcy court to out-of-court workouts by way of exchange offers made only to large institutional investors. The new workouts feature a battery of strong-arm tactics by bond issuers, and aggrieved bondholders have complained in court. The result has been a new, broad reading of the primary law governing workouts, section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act of 1939 (“TIA”), …

Constructive Ambiguity And Judicial Development Of Insider Trading, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The Texas Gulf Sulphur decision began what has become a fifty-year project of developing U.S. insider trading regulation through judicial lawmaking. During the course of that project, the courts developed a complex, fraud-based approach to determining the scope of liability. The approach has led, in many cases, to doctrinal uncertainty, a result that is reflected in the recent decisions in Newman, Salman, and Martoma.

n the face of this uncertainty, many commentators have called for a legislative solution. This article argues, however, that the true challenge of insider trading regulation is a lack of consensus about the …

From Equality To Duty: On Altering The Reach, Impact, And Meaning Of The Texas Gulf Legacy, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

As the first federal court decision to hold that insider trading represented a violation of the federal securities laws, the historical importance of SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. is clear. However, its current relevance may not be so clear. This is because while there are some aspects of Texas Gulf that have endured and remain a fixture of federal insider trading jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has firmly repudiated the normative rationale for insider trading articulated by Texas Gulf. This essay contends that this repudiation has important descriptive and normative implications. Perhaps most importantly, this essay contends that Texas Gulf …