Securities Law Commons^™

Morality And Securities Fraud, Jayme Herschkopf

Marquette Law Review

Securities fraud features prominently in conversations about financial reform, and for good reason. In addition to the disproportionate number of securities fraud lawsuits and government actions filed every year, securities fraud case law is frequently consulted as an analytical aid for other types of corporate fraud. And yet, in discussing the interpretation and application of the securities laws, scholars, judges, and lawmakers alike have largely overlooked a feature of securities fraud that could offer significant assistance in many challenging areas: namely, that securities fraud, including civil securities fraud, has a pronounced moral dimension.

This Article explores the role that moral …

Protecting Whistleblowing (And Not Just Whistleblowers), Evan J. Ballan

Michigan Law Review

When the government contracts with private parties, the risk of fraud runs high. Fraud against the government hurts everyone: taxpayer money is wasted on inferior or nonexistent products and services, and the public bears the burdens attendant to those inadequate goods. To combat fraud, Congress has developed several statutory frameworks to encourage whistleblowers to come forward and report wrongdoing in exchange for a monetary reward. The federal False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to file an action in federal court on behalf of the United States, and to share in any recovery. Under the Dodd- Frank Act, the SEC Office of …

When Is The ‘Force’ With A Securities Claim That Is ‘Brought To Enforce’ A Federal Securities Law?, Michelle Wellnitz

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Stock Market Futurism, Merritt Fox, Gabriel Rauterberg

Articles

The U.S. stock market is undergoing extraordinary upheaval. The approval of the application of the Investors Exchange (IEX) to become the nation's newest stock exchange, including its famous "speed bump," was one of the SEC's most controversial decisions in decades. Other exchanges have proposed a raft of new innovations in its wake. This evolving equity market is a critical piece of national infrastructure, but the regulatory scheme for its institutions is increasingly frayed. In particular, current regulation draws sharp distinctions among different kinds of markets for trading stocks, treating stock exchanges as self-regulatory organizations immune from private civil litigation, while …

The Perfect Storm Is Brewing Once Again: What Scaling Back Dodd-Frank Will Mean For The Credit Default Swap, Daniel Isaacson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The current presidential administration has expressed a concerted desire to “scale back” and even “get rid of” the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd–Frank). Focusing specifically on Dodd–Frank’s regulation of the credit default swap (CDS), this Article explores two timely queries. First, whether Dodd–Frank’s regulatory response to these financial instruments is a justifiable one, and second, what effect a repeal may have. This Article will show that the “perfect storm” CDS—which contributed so significantly to the 2007–2010 financial crisis—flourished in a regulatory environment that contained two key weaknesses: (1) few restrictions on excessive speculation; and (2) the …

To Be A "Whistleblower," Or Not To Be A "Whistleblower? " That Is The Question-Whether 'Tis Nobler In The Mind Of The Courts To Suffer For Reporting Wrongdoing To The Sec Or Employers Internally: Examining The Recent Circuit Split Regarding The Definition Of A Whistleblower Under Dodd-Frank, Luke I. Landers

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Under the current state of the law, the circuit courts are split over whether an employee must report corporate wrongdoing directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or report wrongdoing to a company’s management in order to receive whistleblower protection under Dodd–Frank. The resolution of this circuit split not only will have implications for American employees caught in situations similar to the fiction above, but also will provide a prime opportunity for the Supreme Court to clarify how courts are to understand the interpretive and deferential relationship between the language of legislative statutes and their corresponding bureaucratic regulations. In …

Clarifying The Original Clawback: Interpreting Sarbanes-Oxley Section 304 Through The Lens Of Dodd-Frank Section 954, J. Royce Fichtner, Patrick Heaston, Lou Ann Simpson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

In the early 2000s, major accounting scandals involving reporting violations and audit failures sent the United States financial markets into turmoil. Congress and President George W. Bush reacted to the controversy by passing the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, better known as the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), in July of 2002. Section 304 created an explicit procedure, whereby the SEC could disgorge or clawback a CEO or CFO’s incentive-based compensation or stock gains when such profits were based on inflated financial statements later required to be restated to reflect the company’s true financial position. When the stock market …

The Case For Federal Preemption Of State Blue Sky Laws, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Popular Media

In our market economy, imposing rules on capital formation makes economic sense. Well-constructed rules regarding capital formation can promote the efficient flow of capital to its highest and best use and prevent or ameliorate fraud or unfairness to investors. These rules, however, generate additional offering costs that may retard or in some cases completely choke off the flow of capital from investors to businesses. The problem with state blue sky laws is their registration requirements, which significantly impede efficient capital formation and provide no material economic or societal benefits, such as protection of investors from fraud.

Dictation And Delegation In Securities Regulation, Usha Rodrigues

Indiana Law Journal

When Congress undertakes major financial reform, either it dictates the precise con-tours of the law itself or it delegates the bulk of the rule making to an administrative agency. This choice has critical consequences. Making the law self-executing in federal legislation is swift, not subject to administrative tinkering, and less vulnerable than rule making to judicial second-guessing. Agency action is, in contrast, deliberate, subject to ongoing bureaucratic fiddling, and more vulnerable than statutes to judicial challenge.

This Article offers the first empirical analysis of the extent of congressional delegation in securities law from 1970 to the present day, examining nine …

Reforming Sec Alj Proceedings, Joanna Howard

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note considers the current constitutional challenges to SEC administrative proceedings and suggests process reforms to enhance fairness for respondents. Challenges have developed since the Dodd-Frank Act expanded the SEC’s ability to use administrative proceedings. Arguments that there is a pre-existing flaw in the method of appointing administrative law judges provide the most potential for success. The Tenth Circuit’s December 2016 decision against the SEC in Bandimere has created a split, diverging from the D.C. Circuit’s analysis of that question in Lucia. Resolution by the Supreme Court may be inevitable. Even if the challengers do ultimately succeed, this will …

The Case For Federal Pre-Emption Of State Blue Sky Laws, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

State blue sky laws—state laws that regulate a company’s offer and sale of securities—are a substantial barrier to businesses’ efficient access to external capital. The registration provisions in state blue sky laws have been especially harmful to small businesses, a vital component of our economy that may account for 30% of the nation’s employment. The costs associated with complying with more than fifty separate and independent obligations to register securities often exceed what small businesses can pay and thus may foreclose small businesses from the capital market. At the same time, requiring small businesses to comply with multiple registration regimes …

The Sec's Neglected Weapon: A Proposed Amendment To Section 17(A)(3) And The Application Of Negligent Insider Trading, Marc I. Steinberg, Abel Ramirez Jr.

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Section 17(a)(3) has been widely neglected as a weapon in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) arsenal against insider trading. Section 17(a)(3) carries the potential of providing the SEC with an advantage that is not afforded by Section 10(b), Rule 10b-5, or Rule 14e-3 — the authority to prosecute insider trading claims premised on the lesser mental state of negligence, thus casting a wider net to enforce insider trading regulations against a new category of defendants — negligent inside traders as well as negligent tippers and tippees. Currently, when pursuing insider trading violations, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) primarily …

The Sec's Shift To Administrative Proceedings: An Empirical Assessment, Stephen J. Choi, Adam C. Prichard

Articles

Congress has repeatedly expanded the authority of the SEC to pursue violations of securities laws in proceedings adjudicated by the SEC's own administrative law judges, most recently through the Dodd-Frank Act. We report the results from an empirical study of SEC enforcement actions against non-financial public companies to assess the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on the balance between civil court and administrative enforcement actions. We show a general decline in the number of court actions and an increase in the number of administrative proceedings post-Dodd-Frank. At the same time, we show an increase in average civil penalties post-Dodd-Frank for …