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Full-Text Articles in Law
Bankruptcy And Economic Recovery, Thomas H. Jackson, David A. Skeel Jr.
Bankruptcy And Economic Recovery, Thomas H. Jackson, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
To measure economic growth or recovery, one traditionally looks to metrics such as the unemployment rate and the growth in GDP. And in terms of figuring out institutional policies that will stimulate economic growth, the focus most often is on policies that encourage investment, entrepreneurial enterprises, and reward risk-taking with appropriate returns. Bankruptcy academics that we are, we tend to add our own area of expertise to this stable— with the firm belief that thinking critically about bankruptcy policy is an important element of any set of institutions designed to speed economic recovery. In this paper, written for a book …
Custodial Requirements For Customer Funds, Jerry W. Markham
Custodial Requirements For Customer Funds, Jerry W. Markham
Faculty Publications
A series of bankruptcies by large financial institutions in recent years resulted in massive shortages of customer funds. The first of those failures, Refco, Inc. (Refco), occurred in 2005 after the exposure of a massive fraud by its officers. That debacle was followed in 2007 by the failure of Sentinel Management Group, Inc. (Sentinel), which had used several hundred million dollars of customer assets to leverage the firm's trading position. The failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (Lehman or Lehman Brothers) during the Financial Crisis in 2008 was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and resulted in extensive litigation over …
Economics Of Bankruptcy – Introduction, Edward R. Morrison
Economics Of Bankruptcy – Introduction, Edward R. Morrison
Faculty Scholarship
This essay surveys important contributions to the economics of bankruptcy. It is an introductory chapter for a forthcoming volume (from Edward Elgar Press) that compiles the work of legal scholars as well as economists working in the field of corporate finance. The essay begins with the foundational theories of Baird, Jackson, and Rea and then collects scholarly work extending, testing, or revising those theories. At various points I identify questions that merit further study, particularly empirical testing.
Improving The Lives Of Individuals In Financial Distress Using A Randomized Control Trial: A Research And Clinical Approach, Lois R. Lupica, Dalie´ Jimenez, D. James Greiner, Rebecca L. Sandefur
Improving The Lives Of Individuals In Financial Distress Using A Randomized Control Trial: A Research And Clinical Approach, Lois R. Lupica, Dalie´ Jimenez, D. James Greiner, Rebecca L. Sandefur
Faculty Publications
This Article describes an ambitious Randomized Control Trial (RCT) in the area of consumer debt collection. Randomized trials are the same kind of evaluation that the law requires (or at least strongly encourages) before new drugs and medical devices may be sold to the public. Although they have not yet gained widespread popularity in the evaluation of legal systems, randomized trials are uniquely effective ways of assessing whether any benefits observed after implementation of legal or educational assistance programs are really due to those programs as compared to other factors, such as unusual levels of competence or motivation of program …
Bankruptcy Law As A Liquidity Provider, Kenneth M. Ayotte, David A. Skeel Jr.
Bankruptcy Law As A Liquidity Provider, Kenneth M. Ayotte, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
Since the outset of the recent financial crisis, liquidity problems have been cited as the cause behind the bankruptcies and near bankruptcies of numerous firms, ranging from Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in 2008 to Kodak more recently. This paper expands the prevailing normative theory of corporate bankruptcy — the Creditors’ Bargain theory — to include a role for bankruptcy as a provider of liquidity. The Creditors’ Bargain theory argues that bankruptcy law should be limited to solving problems caused by multiple, uncoordinated creditors, but focuses almost exclusively on the problem of creditor runs. We argue that two well-known problems …
Contract Hope And Sovereign Redemption, Anna Gelpern
Contract Hope And Sovereign Redemption, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Sovereign immunity has served as a partial substitute for bankruptcy protection, but it has encouraged a minority of creditors to pursue unorthodox legal remedies with spillover effects far beyond the debtor-creditor relationship. The attempt to enforce Argentina’s pari passu clause in New York is an example of such a remedy, which relies primarily on collateral damage to other creditors and market infrastructure to obtain settlement from a debtor that would not pay. The District Court decision, now on appeal before the Second Circuit, may not make holding out more attractive in future restructurings – but it would make participation less …
Ring-Fencing, Steven L. Schwarcz
Ring-Fencing, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
“Ring-fencing” is often touted as a regulatory solution to problems in banking, finance, public utilities, and insurance. However, both the precise meaning of ring-fencing, as well as the nature of the problems that ring-fencing regulation purports to solve, are ill defined. This article examines the functions and conceptual foundations of ring-fencing. In a regulatory context, the term can best be understood as legally deconstructing a firm in order to more optimally reallocate and reduce risk. So utilized, ring-fencing can help to protect public-benefit activities performed by private-sector firms, as well as to mitigate systemic risk and the too-big-to-fail problem inherent …