Law Commons^™

Educating Deal Lawyers For The Digital Age, Heather Hughes

Fordham Law Review

Courses and programs that address law and emerging technologies are proliferating in U.S. law schools. Technology-related issues pervade the curriculum. This Essay presents two instances in which new technologies present challenges for deal lawyers. It explores how exposing students to closing opinions practice can prepare them to engage these challenges. Both examples involve common commercial contexts and lessons relevant to students of business associations and of the Uniform Commercial Code. The first, which deals with enforceability opinion letters, presents technical legal difficulties arising from recent developments in law and technology. The second, involving complex doctrines at the heart of financial …

Forum Selection Provisions And The Preclusion Of Derivative Claims Under Section 14(A) Of The Securities Exchange Act: Should Federal Courts Intervene?, Noah P. Mathews

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines whether a forum selection provision in a corporation’s bylaws that requires shareholders to bring derivative claims in the Delaware Court of Chancery is enforceable when invoked by directors to dismiss derivative claims under the Securities Exchange Act (the “Exchange Act”)—claims over which federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. In Seafarers Pension Plan ex rel. Boeing Co. v. Bradway, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that enforcing this type of bylaw would violate the act’s antiwaiver provision, which voids any stipulation that allows a person to waive compliance with the act. In Lee ex …

Unfair, Abusive, And Unlawful: Protecting Debtors And Society From Unrestrained Bank Account Garnishment, Kevin Green

Fordham Law Review

In the span of a generation, consumer credit has reshaped the financial lives of millions of Americans. Today, some seventy million Americans have a debt in collections, and creditors file millions of actions annually to secure repayment of these loans. Despite the rapid expansion of consumer debt, the Consumer Credit Protection Act, the only federal law limiting garnishment, has not been updated since its enactment in 1968. Moreover, courts have narrowly construed its provisions to permit creditors to empty a debtor’s bank account to repay a delinquent debt.

To afford debtors the basic protections of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, …

Lawmakers As Job Buyers, Edward W. De Barbieri

Fordham Law Review

In 2013, Washington State authorized the largest state tax incentive for private industry in U.S. history. It is not remarkable for a state legislature to use tax benefits to retain a major employer—in this case, the global aerospace manufacturer Boeing. Laws across all states and thousands of cities routinely incentivize companies such as Amazon to relocate or remain in particular areas. Notably, however, Washington did not recover any of the subsidies it authorized despite Boeing’s significant post-incentive workforce reductions. This story leads to several important questions: (1) How effective are state and local legislatures at influencing business-location decisions?; (2) Do …

Regulating Habit-Forming Technology, Kyle Langvardt

Fordham Law Review

Tech developers, like slot machine designers, strive to maximize the user’s “time on device.” They do so by designing habit-forming products— products that draw consciously on the same behavioral design strategies that the casino industry pioneered. The predictable result is that most tech users spend more time on device than they would like, about five hours of phone time a day, while a substantial minority develop life-changing behavioral problems similar to problem gambling. Other countries have begun to regulate habit-forming tech, and American jurisdictions may soon follow suit. Several state legislatures today are considering bills to regulate “loot boxes,” a …

Soft And Hard Strategies: The Role Of Business In The Crafting Of International Commercial Law, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

Part I returns to the classic definition of hard international law initially put forward by Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal and related IR scholars and analyzes existing commercial law treaties in light of this definition. It concludes that virtually none of these commercial law treaties constitute “hard” international law because nearly all commercial law treaties rely on national courts for enforcement. But Abbott and Snidal’s focus on the extent to which international law is legalized—and especially the extent to which it is enforced by international actors—may matter less with commercial than other more public international lawmaking. This is because the …

Thinking Outside The Box: Reforming Commercial Discrimination Doctrine To Combat The Negative Consequences Of Ban-The-Box Legislation, Nina Kucharczyk

Fordham Law Review

This Note suggests a new approach to address the unintended consequences of ban-the-box legislation. The solution to combat unconscious discrimination during the hiring process is not to eliminate ban- the-box laws entirely; instead, lawmakers must modernize and strengthen Commercial discrimination doctrine to empower racial minorities who suspect discrimination and to ensure employers are critically analyzing their hiring processes.

It's Time For A Good Hard Look In The Mirror: The Corporate Law Example, John A. Barrett, Jr.

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Article asserts that the move from the industrial age to the

information age represents a fundamental change to our society on

such a widespread basis that the legal order must reexamine the

premises about how our society functions, assessing whether

foundational elements of U.S. Common Law remain valid. This

Article first confronts briefly the continuing acceptance of certain

foundational premises in contract and intellectual property law,

illustrating that such premises are no longer supported by the

realities of modern society. With fundamental change challenging

multiple areas of law in the information age, this problem is worthy

of widespread inquiry …

The Eleventh Annual Albert A. Destefano Lecture On Corporate, Securities & Financial Law At The Fordham Corporate Law Center: Are Federal Judges Competent? Dilettantes In An Age Of Economic Expertise, The Honorable Jed Rakoff

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The title of my little talk here tonight is “Are

Federal Judges Competent?” This naturally raises the question of whether I am competent to answer that question. I put this question to myself, and, after careful consideration of both sides of the argument, concluded that I am competent to determine whether I am competent. As H. L. Mencken once said, “A judge is a law student who grades his own exams.”

Private Equity Investment In The Brics, Andreas Woeller

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Article investigates the legal and economic environment for private equity investments in Brazil, Russia, India and China (“BRIC”). In contrast with disappointing returns in the 1990s, private equity investment has soared in developing countries over the past decade. To explain what has led to the recent success of private equity in the BRICs, this Article will first give an overview of the challenges faced generally when investing in portfolio companies in developing markets and then analyze the legal and economic framework for each of the four BRICs. This Article finds that Brazil and China offer the best opportunities for …

Is Europe Headed Down The Primrose Path With Mandatory Mediation, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Drafting: An Essential Skill, Harold A. Segall

Fordham Urban Law Journal

A good commerical lawyer must be skillful and facile in drafting. This essay addresses how lawyers can develop and perfect this important skill.

Bank Holding Company Act: Has It Lived Its Life, The , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (BHCA) "regulates the acquisition of state and national banks by bank holding companies." The BHCA also regulates the nonbanking activities of bank holding companies and their nonbank subsidiaries. The BHCA was enacted and remains on the books for two fundamental reasons: 1) to prevent undue concentration in banking; and 2) to avoid the mixing of banking with other businesses unrelated to banking (generally called "commerce"). Both of these purposes have been or are being discredited, and it is time to ask whether the BHCA should be repealed. On several levels, banking is combined …

But The Proposed Uniform Commercial Code Was Adopted Is The Ucc Dead, Or Alive And Well, Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The oldest living resident may recognize that the title above is de- rived from an article written by Professor Frederick K. Beutel of the Yale Law School, which appeared in the 1952 Yale Law Journal. Professor Beutel began his article by stating that the UCC should not be adopted and concluded by advising that it would "mark the beginning of the end of fairness and uniformity in the commercial law." Beutel's advice was not taken, and, with relatively modest modifications, the UCC has been adopted in all states. This Essay investigates whether Professor Beutel's concerns were justified.

Strange Bedfellows For Electronic Funds Transfers: Proposed Article 4a Of The Uniform Commercial Code And The Uncitral Model Law Symposium: Revised U.C.C. Articles 3 &(And) 4 And New Article 4a, Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Two pieces of proposed legislation that will affect the same subject matter are proceeding down parallel tracks. If all goes as planned, the tracks will at some time turn inward and there may be a collision. Each piece has as its core concern the subject of electronic funds transfers ("EFTs"), the modern device that has overtaken checks as the principal form of money transfer.' Basically, however, before the promulgation of Article 4A there was no legislation, either in the United States or abroad, that governed EFTs in the way that Articles 3 and 4 of the Uniform Commercial Code ("U.C.C.") …

Competing State And Federal Roles In Consumer Credit Law , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

An important problem confronting those in the consumer credit industry is the absence of a cohesive body of law. This impairs creditors of all types and also results in unequal treatment of consumers. In a comprehensive study Mfr. Felsenfeld analyzes the evolution from purely state regulation of consumer credit to a combination of state and federal control. The author suggests that, despite certain merits of local regulation, the consumer credit area may well be preempted by future federal legislation.

Knowledge As A Factor In Determinig Priorities Under The Uniform Commercial Code , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Before the Uniform Commercial Code, a second secured party could not perfect his interest over a prior unperfected interest if he had knowledge of that prior interest. The Code, in contrast, promulgates a basic "first-to-file" priority rule in section 9-312(5). In this sharp departure from prior law, the knowledge factor is omitted. Other sections of Article 9, however, allude to certain aspects of the pre-Code knowledge requirements. Mr. Felsenfeld analyses the difficulties and incongruities which may arise from this lack of explicitness with regard to knowledge of prior security interests. He concludes that the courts may and should reconcile such …

Some Ruminations About Remedies In Consumer-Credit Transactions , Carl Felsenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

The draftsmen of the Uniform Consumer Credit Code (herein- after the Credit Code) have thus far directed most of their time and effort to establishing a permissive pattern within which creditors give and debtors receive credit. Spokesmen for both sides, as well as distinguished neutral parties, have carefully described the terms under which credit may be granted, the rates that may be charged, and many other elements of the credit transaction. These statutory requirements will significantly influence the size and scope of the debtor community and will undoubtedly set the future pattern for consumer-credit transactions. Thus, these permissive, or authorizing, …