Law Commons^™

Contingency And Contracts: A Philosophy Of Complex Business Transactions, Jeffrey Marc Lipshaw

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In this article, I argue that the prevailing literature on contract theory does not adequately address the way real-world lawyers address uncertainty in complex business transactions. I attribute this to the constraints imposed by thinking in legal models, the dominant tendency to turn to economics for analysis and normative prescription, and the focus on adjudicative issues of hindsight interpretation. Commercial uncertainty, and the law’s response to it, is only a subset of the broader philosophical issue of contingency. As an alternative to prevailing thought, I trace philosophical approaches to contingency, utility and morality that have come down to us since …

Good Faith In The Cisg: Interpretation Problems In Article 7, Benedict C. Sheehy

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ABSTRACT: This article examines the dispute concerning the meaning of Good Faith in the CISG. Although there are good reasons for arguing a more limited interpretation or more limited application of Good Faith, there are also good reasons for a broader approach. Regardless of the correct interpretation, however, practitioners and academics need to have a sense of where the actual jurisprudence is going. This article reviews every published case on Article 7 since its inception and concludes that while there is little to suggest a strong pattern is developing, a guided pattern while incorrect doctrinally is preferable to the current …

Do Patents Facilitate Financing In The Software Industry?, Ronald J. Mann

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This paper is the first part of a wide-ranging study of the role of intellectual property in the software industry. Unlike previous papers, which focus primarily on software patents – which generally are held by firms that are not software firms – this paper provides a thorough and contextually grounded description of the role that patents actually play in the software industry itself.

The bulk of the paper considers the pros and cons of patents in the software industry. On the positive side, the paper starts by emphasizing the difficulties that pre-revenue startups face in obtaining any value from patents. …

Evaluating Work: Enforcing Occupational Safety And Health Standards In The United States, Canada And Sweden, Daniel B. Klaff

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The United States’ occupational safety and health enforcement system is breaking down. Klaff argues that much of this breakdown has to do with a fundamental lack of worker participation in the United States’ safety and health system. Klaff makes his case by comparing and contrasting the history and enforcement schemes of the United States, Canada, and Sweden. After arguing for economic rights as human rights, Klaff concludes by offering a set of recommendations for the United States’ occupational safety and health system based upon his value-centered analysis.

The End Of Notice: Secrets And Liens In Commercial Finance Law, Jonathan C. Lipson

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This article explores important recent changes in the way that we treat personal property in commercial finance transactions. Among other things, these changes reduce or eliminate the obligation to give notice of interests in personal property when it is used in commercial finance transactions (as, e.g., collateral for a loan).

A principal purpose of notice-filing has been to deter the creation of secret liens, interests in property that are neither recorded nor otherwise readily observable. Secret liens are universally castigated as abhorrent.

Yet, two recent sets of legislative developments suggest that we may care much less about the problem of …

Textual Harassment: A New Historicist Reappraisal, Hila Keren

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This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the Parol Evidence Rule, the rule that dictates that the interpretation of a written contract should be determined solely according to its text and not influenced by prior contradictory external information. This article uses the occasion to offer a fresh interdisciplinary view of the Rule. The analysis presents a unique contribution to the heated debate regarding the desired levels of formalism and textualism in present-day contract law, by using New-Historicist tools.

Unexplored aspects of the roots of the Rule are illuminated through an in-depth investigation of the first case of the contractual …

Reconsidering The Prohibition Against General Solicitation During Section 3(C)(7) Offerings, Daniel P. Taub

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This paper examines the seventy year history of the general solicitation prohibition during private offerings and then analyzes its continuing relevance as applied to Section 3(c)(7) offerings. The S.E.C. Staff recently issued a report questioning the continuing value of prohibiting general solicitation during private offerings made pursuant to Section 3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act. If the S.E.C. were to follow the recommendation in the S.E.C. Staff Report, this would have tremendous implications for a growing number of hedge funds, and other investment companies utilizing the Section 3(c)(7) exemption. By allowing general solicitation, the S.E.C. would be reversing a policy …

Extraterritoriality Of The Sherman Act And Deterrence Of Private International Cartels, John M. Connor

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This paper argues that the facts in the vitamins cartel support decisions in the 2nd and DC circuits to permit wholly foreign direct buyers of globally cartelized products standing to sue in U.S. courts. Such an interpretation of the Sherman Act is justified by conduct that is essentially linked to the management of successful international cartels, namely, the prevention of geographic arbitrage. This paper shows that the degree of injuries imposed on U.S. consumers could not have occurred were it not for coordinated price increases in countries with weak or nonexistent anticartel laws. Moreover, this paper endeavors to demonstrate that, …

The Rise Of The Code Of Conduct In Japan: Legal Analysis And Prospect, Koji Ishikawa

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A code of conduct is a set of rules adopted by transnational corporations (“TNCs”) to regulate mainly working conditions and the management of contract factories. TNCs adopted codes of conduct to cope with the rising criticisms from the public in late 1980s and 1990s about unfair labor practices in contract factories in Third World countries. As the globalization of the economy progressed, like American TNCs, Japanese TNCs also transferred their production bases to developing countries like China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia in search of low wage labor. The development of a code of conduct in Japan is, however, quite different …

Secrets And Liens: Verification And Measurement In Commercial Finance Law, Jonathan C. Lipson

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This article argues that commercial finance law increasingly uses contract rules to displace property rules, especially as these rules pertain to verifying and measuring property interests. In this context, verification simply means confirming the existence of a property interest, such as a lien or security interest. Measurement means determining the relationships of various property interests to one another (i.e., the priority of interests).

Historically, commercial finance law – in particular the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs loans secured by personal property – provided that something would be treated as “property” only if its property character was fairly easy to discover. …

Known Unknowns: The Delusion Of Terrorism Insurance, Michelle Boardman

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No abstract provided.

Book Review: Benjamin Geva, Bank Collections And Payment Transactions, Arnold S. Rosenberg

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The author reviews Geva, Bank Collections and Payment Transactions (Oxford University Press, 2001). The book is the first comprehensive work on the comparative law of checks and electronic funds transfers, and attempts to identify a universal "law merchant" governing checks and electronic funds transfers in these bodies of law.

The Importance Of Corporate Models, Benedict C. Sheehy

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This article argues that the debate concerning the nature of the corporation is not finished and nor a mere intellectual exercise for interested legal academics. The current model of the corporation as an economic entity—the firm—has a number of imbedded value assumptions. Given the common territory between corporate law and economics, some scholars have come to identify the two as equal partners striving for the same ends. This is a serious error which has had and continues to have significant negative consequences for both the economic situation of the majority and justice in society. These value assumptions are being seriously …

Making Sense Of Payments Policy In The Information Age, Ronald J. Mann

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No abstract provided.

Leaving Money On The Table: Contract Practice In A Low-Trust Environment, Ruben Kraiem

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Social capital – the level of trust inherent in a society – will affect the contracting practices that are considered standard, practical or fair. These practices in turn will help determine the parties’ positions as they approach their negotiation, how they will communicate, and what terms they will agree in any particular transaction. This is true not only for the small transaction, but also for large and complex deals. As a result, when operating in a low-trust environment, even sophisticated parties (who can bear the costs of tailoring an agreement to their particular case), will be prone to relinquish or …

A Gradual Shift In U.S. Privacy Laws Towards A Comprehensive Regime , Kamaal R. Zaidi

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This paper examines the current trends in a predominantly sectoral U.S. privacy regime that appears to be becoming more comprehensive in nature with respect to data privacy protection. This trend has been greatly attributed to the European Union's comprehensive position on data privacy protection. This paper investigates the growth in U.S. data privacy protection in relation to federal and state legislative history, federal administrative procedures, and private industry efforts. This shift from sectoral to comprehensive regimes is significant in the backdrop of U.S-EU trade relations.

Scrooge—The Reluctant Stakeholder, Benedict C. Sheehy

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Abstract: Corporations law around the world is moving in the direction of the shareholder primacy model, common in the USA and other common law countries. Lawyers, academics and public policy analysts are divided as to the merits of the model and its main competitor, the stakeholder model. The gist of arguments usually hinge on economics. This article examines the claims for and against the two models on their own terms, and suggests that law has a unique contribution to make to the development of the corporation and society.

Regulating Internet Payment Intermediaries, Ronald J. Mann

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This paper examines legal and policy issues raised by changes in payment methods related to the rise of the Internet. The two major changes – the rise of P2P systems like PayPal, and the rise of Internet billing systems (EBPP) to replace the use of paper bills and checks – both involve new intermediaries that facilitate payments made by conventional payment systems. The paper first discusses how those systems work. It then discusses problems in the framework currently used to regulate those systems in the United States, which has not been updated to protect consumers from the special problems those …

Mass Toxic Tort Litigation And Class Action Rule Reform In The United States, Jason L. Betts

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The paper advances the proposition that mass toxic tort litigation has been the predominant driver of class action rule reform in the Unites States. Through three distinct phases of proposals to reform Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the judicial and academic attitude to the certification of mass toxic torts has influenced the reform debate in radically different ways – initially by providing the catalyst for efforts to reform Rule 23; then as a dampener against significant reforms to Rule 23 in the wake of mass toxic tort “settlement-only” classes; and ultimately as an explanation for the …

Forged Facsimile Signatures And Basic Principles Of The Law Of The Check Collection System, James S. Rogers

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No abstract provided.

Bounded Rationality, The Doctrine Of Impracticability, And The Governance Of Relational Contracts, Donald J. Smythe

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This article uses a behavioral economics approach to analyze the effects of the doctrine of impracticability on “relational” contracts -- long-term contractual agreements that are typically adapted to changed circumstances and unforeseen contingencies as they arise. In contrast to conventional law and economics studies, the article concludes that the impracticability doctrine has the potential to improve the efficiency and productivity of a wide range of long-term contractual agreements, and offers normative guidelines as to how the doctrine should be applied. The article also examines and rejects various philosophical objections to the impracticability doctrine, such as the arguments that it interferes …