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Lawyers In The Perfect Storm, Mark A. Sargent

Working Paper Series

The multiple corporate collapses and scandals of recent years, for which "Enron" is a convenient shorthand, resulted from a perfect storm in which regulatory oversight, the law of fiduciary duty, gatekeepers, market discipline, and contractual incentives all failed to prevent gross self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and deception, or themselves produced perverse consequences. The story of this simultaneous failure of the structures in place since the New Deal and before, has received considerable attention in both the popular and scholarly literature, but is summarized here to provide a context for consideration of the contributions that lawyers made to the perfect storm. …

Corporate Governance In The Sultanate Of Oman, Ellen Kerrigan Dry

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

While the United States’ capital market has had its headline-grabbing scandals involving companies such as World Com and Entron, the capital markey in the Sultanate of Oman (Oman) has also experienced its share of corporate troubles affecting not onlt large Omani companies such as National Rice Mills SAOG and Oman National Investment Company Holdings SAOG, but also dozens of smaller companies, which have had to turn to the government to assistance.

Corporate Governance Issues, Peter Peterson, John Foster, Jeffrey M. Colon, William Treanor

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

The A.A. Sommer, Jr. Annual Lecture On Corporate Securities & Financial Law: Post-Enron America: An Sec Perspective, Harvey Goldschmid, William Treanor, John F.X. Peloso, Jill Fisch

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Ethics, Law Firms, And Legal Education, Milton C. Regan

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A rash of recent corporate scandals has once again put professional ethics in the spotlight. It's hard to pick up the Wall Street Journal each day and not read that authorities have launched a new investigation or that additional indictments are imminent. Stories of financial fraud and outright looting have galvanized the public and shaken the economy. What ethical lessons can we draw from these events? Two explanations seem especially prominent. The first is a story of individuals without an adequate moral compass. Some people's greed and ambition were unchecked by any internal ethical constraints. For such deviants, no amount …

Managing The Expectations Gap In Inventor Protection: The Sec And The Post-Enron Reform Agenda, Donald C. Langevoort

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

When Clients Do Bad Things: The Lawyer's Response To Corporate Wrongdoing, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The high profile meltdowns of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, Global Crossing and other well-known companies have focused attention on the responsibilities of corporate gatekeepers, including attorneys, to deter or expose fraudulent conduct by their clients and associated persons. Attorneys have been the subject of investigation and criticism by Congress' and federal regulators for failing to adequately respond to their clients' fraudulent (and, possibly, criminal) conduct. The lawyer who learns that his or her client or persons acting on its behalf are engaged in a course of fraudulent or criminal conduct which threatens economic losses to non-client third parties faces both …

Is Silence Golden When It Comes To Auditing?, 36 J. Marshall L. Rev. 57 (2002), Darin Bartholomew

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Investor Confidence Game, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Academic discussions of securities policy often assume that investors are hyperrational and distrustful actors who do not need the protections of the securities laws to avoid being defrauded. The time has come to recognize the limitations of this assumption and to consider as well the possibility and implications of investor trust. Experienced policymakers and businesspeople (and certainly experienced con artists) have long known that trust is a potent force in explaining and manipulating investor behavior. They are right. They are right to believe that investor confidence-meaning investor trust-is important to the market. They are right to think that trust has …

The Beginning Of Herstory For Corporate Law, Kellye Y. Testy

Articles

In The Gender Implications of Corporate Governance Change, Janis Sarra presents what has until now seemed oxymoronic to many: a feminist economic analysis of corporate governance in the global marketplace. In so doing, she joins a growing chorus of corporate governance scholars who are seeking to advance an alternative vision to the neoclassical, shareholder-centered model that is not only dominant in the United States, but is also widely exported-even to nations that do not share similar institutional configurations that support such a model. This diverse group of scholars--whose approaches have been labeled variously as "progressive," "communitarian," and "socio-economic,"--do not …

The Acquiescent Gatekeeper: Reputational Intermediaries, Auditor Independence And The Governance Of Accounting, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The role of "gatekeepers" as reputational intermediaries who can be more easily deterred than the principals they serve has been developed in theory, but less often examined in practice. Initially, this article seeks to define the conditions under which gatekeeper liability is likely to work – and, correspondingly, the conditions under which it is more likely to fail. Then, after reviewing the recent empirical literature on earnings management, it concludes that the independent auditor does not today satisfy the conditions under which gatekeeper liability should produce high law compliance. A variety of explanations – poor observability, implicit collusion, and high …

We're All Capitalist Now: The Importance, Nature, Provision And Regulation Of Investor Education, James A. Fanto

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Savings And Loan Debacle Of The 1980s: White-Collar Crime Or Risky Business, William K. Black, Calavita Kitty, Pontell N. Henry

Faculty Works

This paper examines the role of white-collar crime in the savings and loan crisis. Noting economists' assertions that crime was only a minor ingredient in the crisis, we compare the explanatory power of this "minimal fraud" model to that of its "material fraud" alternative. Bringing together evidence from every major study of thrifts in the 1980s, we argue that only the material fraud hypothesis can make sense of these data. This study demonstrates the utility of deductive reasoning in distinguishing between white-collar crime and ordinary business transactions, thereby potentially contributing to prosecutorial efforts, and helping resolve long-standing methodological dilemmas confront­ing …

When Is A Corporate Executive "Substantially Unfit To Serve"?, Jayne W. Barnard

Faculty Publications

The recently enacted Securities Enforcement Remedies and Penny Stock Reform Act of 1990 provides that, in an SEC enforcement action, a federal court may enjoin or "disbar" the defendant from serving in the future as an officer or director of a public company. A court may enter such an order if it finds that the defendant is "substantially unfit" to serve as a corporate executive; the Act, however, does not define "substantial unfitness." In this Article Professor Jayne Barnard provides a framework for defining this term and identifying the defendants to which the Remedies Act should apply. Professor Barnard begins …

The Role Of The Board Of Directors: The Ali And Its Critics, Victor Brudney

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Integration Of Public Utility Holding Companies, Robert F. Ritchie

Michigan Legal Studies Series

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation ever enacted by Congress, but despite this fact it has withstood numerous and vigorous attacks upon its constitutionality and, further, it has never been amended in any material respect. The Securities and Exchange Commission was confronted in 1935 with one of the most difficult administrative tasks in modern history. How it met and resolved the difficult problems of geographical and economic integration, arising under the so-called "death sentence" provisions of this Act, is the subject matter of this publication.

The research involved in …