Securities Law Commons^™

The Pioneers, Waves, And Random Walks Of Securities Law In The Supreme Court, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

After the pioneers, waves, and random walks that have animated the history of securities laws in the U.S. Supreme Court, we might now be on the precipice of a new chapter. Pritchard and Thompson’s superb book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, illuminates with rich archival detail how the Court’s view of the securities laws and the SEC have changed over time and how individuals have influenced this history. The book provides an invaluable resource for understanding nearly a century’s worth of Supreme Court jurisprudence in the area of securities law and much needed context for …

Three Stories: A Comment On Pritchard & Thompson’S A History Of Securities Laws In The Supreme Court, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson’s A History of Securities Laws in the Supreme Court should stand for decades as the definitive work on the Federal securities laws’ career in the Supreme Court across the twentieth century.1 Like all good histories, it both tells a story and makes an argument. The story recounts how the Court dealt with the major securities laws, as well the agency charged with enforcing them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the rules it promulgated, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. But the book does not just string together a series of events, “one …

Why U.S. States Need Their Own Cannabis Industry Banks, Christoph Henkel, Randall K. Johnson

Faculty Works

The legal cannabis trade is the fastest growing industry in the United States. In 2019, about 48.2 million Americans used the drug at least once. As such, it is easy to see why the legal cannabis trade may generate annual revenues exceeding $30 billion in Fiscal Year 2022 alone.

One inconvenient truth, however, is that the parties to any cannabis trade may face a range of difficulties due to conflicts between federal and state laws. These difficulties include the fact that many financial institutions are reluctant to handle cannabis proceeds. One reason is that a lack of alignment in terms …

Ice Skating Up Hill: Constitutional Challenges To Sec Administrative Proceedings, Thomas Glassman

Thomas S Glassman

Since the inception of the Dodd-Frank Act the Securities and Exchange Commission has come under fire for its increased use of administrative proceedings in adjudicating the agency’s enforcement actions. That criticism has come to several suits in federal court claiming constitutional challenges to the system generally and most recently, the Administrative Law Judges themselves. Until June of 2015, when Hill v. the SEC took place in federal court, the Government was unbeaten in when arguing against these constitutional challenges. Hill, however found that it was likely the SEC had hired their Administrative Law Judges unconstitutionally. The SEC Administrative Law Judges …

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …

The Worst Test Of Truth: The "Marketplace Of Ideas" As Faulty Metaphor, Thomas W. Joo

Thomas W Joo

In his famous dissent in Abrams v. United States, Justice Holmes proclaimed that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” This Article critiques the basic argument against speech regulation that has developed from the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor: that speech should be “free” because markets are “free,” and because free markets produce “truth.” These assertions about markets are taken for granted, but they portray markets and market regulation inaccurately; thus economic markets provide a poor analogy for the deregulation of speech.

First Amendment jurisprudence invokes the …

Financial Armageddon Routs Law Again, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos

Nicholas L Georgakopoulos

This essay, after highlighting the unique aspects of financial markets, offers a mostly rational account for financial crises, centering on the 2008 crisis as an example. The thesis is that market participants overestimate the duration of high productivity growth due to new technologies and produce occasional—and likely unavoidable—bubbles. Considering potential changes in the regulation of financial markets, the conclusion is grim. Regulators appear to have exhausted the effective legal levers against overestimations of continued high growth. The legislative responses to the last few crises were likely unproductive. The sole (but still unrealistic) effective protection would be the constitutional development of …

Janus Capital Group, Inc. V. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination Of The Supreme Court’S Evolution From Liberal To Reactionary In Rule 10b-5 Actions, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

“Political” decisions such as Citizens United and National Federation of Independent Business (“Obamacare”) reflect the reactionary bent of several Supreme Court justices. But this reactionary trend is discernible in other areas as well. With regard to Rule 10b-5, the Court has handed down a series of decisions that could be grouped into four trilogies. The article examines the trend over the past 40 years which has become increasingly conservative and finally reactionary.

The first trilogy was a liberal one, arguably overextending the scope of Rule 10b-5. This was followed by a conservative trilogy which put a brake on such extension, …

An Unlikely Solution: Securities Fraud Regulation As A Model For Protecting Fortunetelling As Free Speech, Daniel Hare

Daniel Hare

No abstract provided.

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

The Application Of Federal Common Law To Overcome Conflicting State Laws In The Supplemental Disgorgement Proceedings Of An Sec Appointed Receiver, Gauhar Naseem

ExpressO

In spite of the Erie doctrine, the application of federal common law has survived to overcome conflicting state laws in diversity actions where a federal law, interest or function is implicated. A federal court’s authority to substantively implement a federal common law rule over state law is clearest when the party to the action is a federal entity, namely an agency of the U.S. Government deriving its authority from the Constitution or some source of federal law. Analyzing such authority becomes more difficult in circumstances where parties to a diversity lawsuit are private citizens (not necessarily possessing any direct federal …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Defending Sec And Doj Fcpa Investigations And Conducting Related Corporate Internal Investigations: The Triton Energy/Indonesia Sec Consent Decree Settlements, Arthur F. Mathews

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This article will summarize the foreign bribery/corrupt foreign pay- ments provisions of the FCPA, briefly survey the related books and records and internal accounting controls provisions, analyze available defenses to civil and criminal FCPA charges, and explore sensitive substantive and strategic issues that arise in the defense of SEC and DOJ/grand jury investi- gations and in the conduct of related corporate internal investigations. This article will also analyze the recent SEC consent decree settlements in the Triton Energy/Indonesia case, and explore the types of defenses that might be pursued if an FCPA foreign payments case like Triton were litigated rather …

Globalizing Sanctions Against Foreign Bribery: The Emergence Of A New International Legal Consensus, David A. Gantz

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Part I of the article begins with a review of the rationale and key legal ele- ments of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Part II describes recent efforts by the United States to convince other governments and firms of the need for binding, enforceable and universally accepted rules against corrupt payments to foreign public officials. Parts III and IV survey the activities of various governmental organizations and major private sector groups that support international efforts to effectively discourage foreign bribery, re- spectively. The key sections, Parts V and VI, describe, analyze and critique the two major international conventions, the …

International Financial Institutions Face The Corruption Eruption: If The Ifis Put Their Muscle And Money Where Their Mouth Is, The Corruption Eruption May Be Capped, James P. Jr. Wesberry

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This article addresses what IFIs are doing, are not doing, and hopefully might do to help cap the corruption eruption sweeping our world. The article primarily relates the efforts of the World Bank in this area and briefly discusses efforts by other major IFIs.