Law Commons^™

Law Professor Comment Letter On Harmonization Of Private Offering Rules, Elisabeth D. De Fontenay, Erik Gerding, John Coffee, Jr., James D. Cox, Stephen F. Diamond, Merritt B. Fox, Michael Guttentag, Colleen Honigsberg, Renee M. Jones, Donald Langevoort, Saule T. Omarova, James Park, Jeff Schwartz, Andrew F. Tuch, Urska Velikonja

Research Data

Comment letter filed on Sept. 24, 2019.

"File No. S7-08-19"

"We are fifteen law professors whose scholarship and teaching focuses on securities regulation. We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC” or the “Commission”) Concept Release on Harmonization of Securities Offering Exemptions (the “Concept Release”)."

Mandatory Disclosure In Primary Markets, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Mandatory disclosure—the idea that companies must be legally required to disclose certain, specified information to public investors—is the first principle of modern securities law. Despite the high costs it imposes, mandatory disclosure has been well defended by legal scholars on two theoretical grounds: ‘Agency costs’ and ‘information underproduction.’ While these two concepts are a good fit for secondary markets (where investors trade securities with one another), this Article shows that they are largely irrelevant in the context of primary markets (where companies offer securities directly to investors). The surprising result is that primary offerings—such as an IPO—may not require mandatory …