Digital Commons Network^™

Cyber-Extortion: Duties And Liabilities Related To The Elephant In The Server Room, Adam J. Sulkowski

ExpressO

This is a comprehensive analysis of the legal frameworks related to cyber-extortion – the practice of demanding money in exchange for not carrying out threats to commit harm that would involve a victim's information systems. The author hopes it will catalyze an urgently needed discussion of relevant public policy concerns.

Cyber-extortion has, by all accounts, become a common, professionalized and profit-driven criminal pursuit targeting businesses. 17% of businesses in a recent survey indicated having received a cyber-extortion demand. An additional 13% of respondents were not sure if their business had received such a demand.

Awareness of the risks of cybercrime …

Enron And The Special Purpose Entity. Use Or Abuse? The Real Problem - The Real Focus, Neal F. Newman

ExpressO

In December of 2001, Enron Corporation filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code; one of the largest corporate bankruptcy filings at that time. When the investigations commenced and the tangled Enron web was unraveled, it was discovered that Enron had perpetrated a very sophisticated form of accounting fraud through its repeated use of what are referred to as Special Purpose Entities (“SPEs”). In their most basic forms, SPEs are business entities formed for the purpose of conducting a well specified activity such as construction of a gas pipeline, or collection of a specific group of accounts …

Sarbanes-Oxley's Structural Model To Encourage Corporate Whistleblowers, Richard E. Moberly

ExpressO

Recent corporate scandals demonstrate that rank-and-file employees often remain silent in the face of significant fraud. This silence is unfortunate because corporate employees have inside knowledge of misconduct that gives them an information advantage over more traditional corporate monitors, such as independent directors and government regulators. To address this problem, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act utilized a new approach that encourages employee whistleblowers to disclose information about corporate wrongdoing. This approach, which Professor Richard Moberly labels the “Structural Model,” requires that corporations provide a standardized channel for employees to report organizational misconduct to official monitors within the corporation. This Article offers an …

Legislation And Legitimation: Congress And Insider Trading In The 1980s, Thomas W. Joo

ExpressO

Legislation and Legitimation:

Congress and Insider Trading in the 1980s

Abstract

Orthodox corporate law-and-economics holds that American corporate and securities regulation has evolved inexorably toward economic efficiency. That position is difficult to square with the fact that regulation is the product of government actors and institutions. Indeed, the rational behavior assumptions of law-and-economics suggest that those actors and institutions would tend to place their own self-interest ahead of economic efficiency. This article provides anecdotal evidence of such self-interest at work. Based on an analysis of legislative history—primarily Congressional hearings—this article argues that Congress had little interest in the economic policy …

Implementation Of Sarbanes-Oxley: New Rules For Lawyers And What Lawyers Think, Olga Yevglevskaya-Wayne

ExpressO

This paper discusses practical implications of Sarbanes-Oxley for lawyers. Emphasis is on the new federal rules of professional responsibility the Act sets up. The paper includes the views of various renowned practitioners interpreting and using these rules. The paper also contains suggestions for how the Securities and Exchange Commission could potentially improve those areas that are proving problematic for attorneys so as to better effectuate the purpose of this major new law, in light of its legislative history and intent, which are also discussed in the paper.

Accounting Fraud: Pleading Scienter Of Auditors Under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Gideon Mark

ExpressO

This paper examines the current judicial approach to assessing the scienter of auditors under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. The paper concludes that the current approach is inadequate and should be modified.

Detection Avoidance, Chris William Sanchirico

ExpressO

In practice, the problem of law enforcement is half a matter of what the government does to catch violators and half a matter of what violators do to avoid getting caught. In the theory of law enforcement, however, although the state’s efforts at "detection" play a decisive role, offenders’ efforts at "detection avoidance" are largely ignored. Always problematic, this imbalance has become critical in recent years as episodes of corporate misconduct spur new interest in punishing process crimes like obstruction of justice and perjury. This article adds detection avoidance to the existing theoretical frame with an eye toward informing the …

Fighting Fraud On Faith: Federal Securities Regulation And The Limits Of Disclosure, Shannon R. Selden

ExpressO

In the past ten years, Congress passed three major reform acts to address two diametrically opposed concerns: It first restrained what it believed was an excess of securities fraud litigation, then responded to an explosion of securities fraud. This Article contends that despite the competing provocations and ambitions of the reforms, they share an unwarranted adherence to the principle of disclosure as the best means to attack market malfeasance: The Article examines the basis for and consequences of that undeserved legislative fidelity. Applying behavioral economics and cultural theory to the recent legislation and its underpinnings, the Article concludes that a …

Where There’S At-Will, There Are Many Ways: Redressing The Increasing Incoherence Of Employment At Will, Scott A. Moss

ExpressO

Employment at will, the doctrine that employees have no legal remedy for unfair terminations because they hold their jobs at the will of the employer, has become mired in incoherence. State courts praise the common law rule as “essential to free enterprise” and “central to the free market,” but in recent years they have riddled the rule with increasing exceptions, allowing employee claims for whistleblowing, fraud, etc. Yet states have neither rejected employment at will nor shown any consistency in recognizing exceptions. Strikingly, states cite the same rationales to adopt and reject opposite exceptions, as a case study of two …

Price, Path & Pride: Third-Party Closing Opinion Practice Among U.S. Lawyers (A Preliminary Investigation), Jonathan C. Lipson

ExpressO

This article presents the first in-depth exploration of third-party closing opinions, a common but curious – and potentially troubling -- feature of U.S. business law practice. Third-party closing opinions are letters delivered at the closing of most large transactions by the attorney for one party (e.g., the borrower) to the other party (e.g., the lender) offering limited assurance that the transaction will have legal force and effect.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of legal opinions are delivered every week. Yet, lawyers often complain that they create needless risk and cost, and produce little benefit. Closing opinions thus pose a basic question: …

Organizational Misconduct: Beyond The Principal-Agent Model, Kimberly D. Krawiec

ExpressO

This article demonstrates that, at least since the adoption of the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines in 1991, the United States legal regime has been moving away from a system of strict vicarious liability toward a system of duty-based organizational liability. Under this system, organizational liability for agent misconduct is dependant on whether or not the organization has exercised due care to avoid the harm in question, rather than under traditional agency principles of respondeat superior. Courts and agencies typically evaluate the level of care exercised by the organization by inquiring whether the organization had in place internal compliance structures ostensibly designed …

Revisiting The Role Of The Future In Accounting Reform, Lawrence A. Cunningham

ExpressO

Overlooked in accounting-reform debate emanating from recent financial reporting scandals is the role of forward-looking disclosure inaugurated in the late 1970s and expanded throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Debate centered on whether accounting concepts developed during this period were too rule-bound. An SEC study largely resolved this debate by characterizing US GAAP as a mix of rules and principles embedded in an objectives-based accounting system. The SEC expressed a slight preference for principles over rules in future accounting standard-setting. Some see this resolution as transformative. This Article considers how it may disguise a false dichotomy likely providing false catharsis. Underappreciated …

A New Product For The Corporation Law Market: Audit Committee Certifications, Lawrence A. Cunningham

ExpressO

In the swirling corporate governance reforms led by SOX, the SEC, SROs and PCAOB, Delaware and other states are playing minor roles at best. State absence creates a missing arc in the evolving US corporate governance circle. The circle is drawn as follows: state corporation law charges boards of directors with managing corporations and authorizes board committees; SOX charges audit committees with tasks, including supervising external auditors; SROs require audit committee characteristics like independence and compel disclosure; PCAOB requires external auditors to evaluate audit committee effectiveness. This last step could close the circle except that auditors performing this evaluation generate …