Law Commons^™

Understanding University Fee Litigation: A Few Lessons About The Perils Of Imprudence For Higher Ed Plan Sponsors, Maria O'Brien, Calvin Utter

Faculty Scholarship

Beginning in August 2016, a series of class action lawsuits were filed on behalf of participants and beneficiaries of 403(b) employee retirement plans sponsored by major American colleges and universities. These plans are regulated by the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), which sets minimum standards to protect the participants and beneficiaries of voluntarily established retirement and health plans. The allegations in the several lawsuits have centered primarily around breaches of fiduciary duties by those charged with administering the plan.

These cases are all class action lawsuits brought on behalf of the participants and beneficiaries of the plans in …

Rise Of The Digital Regulator, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

The administrative state is leveraging algorithms to influence individuals’ private decisions. Agencies have begun to write rules to shape for-profit websites such as Expedia and have launched their own online tools such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s mortgage calculator. These digital intermediaries aim to guide people toward better schools, healthier food, and more savings. But enthusiasm for this regulatory paradigm rests on two questionable assumptions. First, digital intermediaries effectively police consumer markets. Second, they require minimal government involvement. Instead, some for-profit online advisers such as travel websites have become what many mortgage brokers were before the 2008 financial crisis. …

"Revenues And Expenses For Cons And Festivals" From The Pop Culture Business Handbook For Cons And Festivals, Jon Garon

Faculty Scholarship

This article is part of a series of book excerpts from The Pop Culture Business Handbook for Cons and Festivals, which provides the business, strategy, and legal reference guide for fan conventions, film festivals, musical festivals, and cultural events.When organizing a festival or Con, the economic model used to develop the event will drive many of the key decisions. If one accepts that the designing of the Con is a form of building a complex game for the attendees, then the Con economy will define many of the structural design choices which will come later in the planning. These chapters …

Understanding Financial Derivatives, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives are commonly defined as some variation of the following: a financial instrument whose value is derived from the performance of a secondary source such as an underlying bond, commodity or index. But this definition is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Thus, not surprisingly, derivatives are largely misunderstood, including by many policy makers, regulators and legal analysts. It is important for interested parties such as policy makers to understand derivatives, because the types and uses of derivatives have exploded in the last few decades, and because these financial instruments can provide both social benefits and cause social harms. This Article presents …

Gambling By Another Name; The Challenge Of Purely Speculative Derivatives, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives contracts can be used to hedge pre-existing risks, but they can also be used to speculate. This Article focuses on derivatives contracts in which both counterparties are speculators. These “purely speculative derivatives (PSD) contracts” have become increasingly common over the last several years and have notably resulted in the transfer of many tens of billions of dollars from institutions that had invested in the US subprime housing market to a handful of speculators who foresaw the market’s collapse, as well as many billions of dollars in fees to PSD brokers.

PSD contracts are problematic. PSD contracts are less-than-zero-sum transactions …

Derivatives: A Twenty-First Century Understanding, Timothy E. Lynch

Faculty Works

Derivatives are commonly defined as some variation of the following: a financial instrument whose value is derived from the performance of a secondary source such as an underlying bond, commodity or index. But this definition is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. Thus, not surprisingly, derivatives are largely misunderstood, including by many policy makers, regulators and legal analysts. It is important for interested parties such as policy makers to understand derivatives, because the types and uses of derivatives have exploded in the last few decades, and because these financial instruments can provide both social benefits and cause social harms. This Article presents …

A Contractual Approach To Data Privacy, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.