Law Commons^™

Gatekeeping The Gatekeepers: The Need For A Licensing Requirement For Crowdfunding Portals In The Wake Of The Dreamfunded Decision, Nick Worden

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Most people are familiar with crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and GoFundMe—sites that allow users to part with their money in exchange for products or donate their capital to organizations they believe in. However, these sites have one trait in common: they do not offer contributors equity or a promise for future profits. For a long time, selling equity meant complying with the costly requirements of federal securities laws, which was cost-prohibitive for many small businesses; it was illegal for businesses to offer equity over a site in the way businesses on Kickstarter offered products. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups …

Finance And Growth: The Legal And Regulatory Implications Of The Role Of The Public Equity Market In The United States, Ezra Wasserman Mitchell

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The important study of the relationship between finance and economic growth has exploded over the past two decades. One of the most significant open questions is the role of the public equity market in stimulating growth and the channels it follows if it does. This paper examines that question from an economic, legal, and historical perspective, especially with regard to its regulatory and corporate governance implications. The US market is my focus.

In contrast to most studies, I follow both economic history and the actual flow of funds in addition to empirics and theory to conclude that the public equity …

Public Pensions And Fiduciary Law: A View From Equity, T. Leigh Anenson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Controversies involving fund management may be the next frontier of public pension litigation. Recent scandals involving fraud, bribery, and corruption of public pension officials and other third parties have drawn the public eye toward the management of retirement assets. Individual and entity custodians, including pension boards of trustees, are charged with making investment and other decisions relating to pension funds. Unlike private pensions, there is no federal oversight of asset managers or others in control of retirement funds. Yet these funds hold more than three trillion dollars in assets. Until now, the guardians of these monies have operated almost invisibly …

Don't Cross The Streams: Past And Present Overstatement Of Customary International Law In Connection With Conventional Fair And Equitable Treatment Obligations, Theodore Kill

Michigan Law Review

The obligation to provide fair and equitable treatment to foreign investors and investments has existed as a concept of international economic law at least since the 1919 Covenant of the League of Nations. The fair and equitable treatment provision is a key protection contained in the vast majority of modern bilateral investment treaties. Tribunals adjudicating alleged breaches of these fair and equitable treatment provisions have not arrived at a uniform interpretation of the term. As a threshold issue, however each tribunal must address the question of whether a state's obligations under a given treaty's fair and equitable treatment provision will …

Directorial Fiduciary Duties In A Tracking Stock Equity Structure: The Need For A Duty Of Fairness, Jeffrey J. Hass

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this article briefly describes the key distinctions between a tracking stock corporation and a conventional corporation. It then touches on the reasons why corporations have adopted tracking stock equity structures. Part II articulates the unique legal challenges presented by a tracking stock equity structure. Part III discusses the disclosure that tracking stock corporations have made with respect to these challenges. Part IV briefly summarizes the fiduciary duties of care and loyalty and explores why these duties are ill-equipped to address these challenges. Part V presents the duty of fairness and discusses the duty's elements in detail. In …

Corporations - Capital, Capital Stock And Stock, Frederick K. Brown

Michigan Law Review

The recent case of Haggard v. Lexington Utilities Co. is typical of the nominalistic confusion occasioned by the use of the terms "capital" and "capital stock." Whatever progress the courts have made toward making them words of precise signification has not been reflected in the drafting of statutes, where they are employed to represent a bewildering number of connotations. The courts have recognized this and have not sought to make them words of art with a single, definitive meaning but through the mechanics of statutory interpretation have sought to divine the legislative intent.