Law Commons^™

Legal And Institutional Remedies For Middle East States Wishing To Develop And Increase Foreign Direct Investment, Griffin Weaver

Griffin Weaver

The cost to overhaul a legal system is astronomical. For example, before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s several states received billions of dollars in loans to help change their “legal systems” and make them more western friendly. A couple of these states were West Germany and Japan, which received roughly 1.5 billion and 2.4 billion USD in loans. Considering most of this money was given in the 1950’s, the value today is probably three times or more those amounts. Without this aid both states would have been unable to make the changes to their …

Halliburton, Basic And Fraud On The Market: The Need For A New Paradigm, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: Halliburton, Basic and Fraud on the Market: The Need for a New Paradigm

If defrauded securities plaintiffs cannot bring a class-action lawsuit, there often will be no effective remedy since the amount at stake for individual plaintiffs is not sufficient to warrant the substantial costs of litigation. To surmount the problem of individualized reliance and establish commonality, federal courts for twenty-five years have been employing the Basic fraud-on-the-market theory which posits that, in an efficient market, investors rely on the integrity of the market price.

While class certification at one time was a matter of course, today it is …

Against Regulatory Displacement: An Institutional Analysis Of Financial Crises, Jonathan C. Lipson

Jonathan C. Lipson

This paper uses “institutional analysis”—the study of the relative capacities of markets, courts, and regulators—to make three claims about financial crises.

First, financial crises are increasingly a problem of “regulatory displacement.” Through the ad hoc rescues of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank reforms of 2010, regulators displace market and judicial processes that ordinarily prevent financial distress from becoming financial crises. Because regulators are vulnerable to capture by large financial services firms, however, they cannot address the pathologies that create crises: market concentration and complexity. Indeed, regulators may inadvertently aggravate these conditions through resolution tactics that consolidate firms, and the volume and …

Bank Resolution In The European Banking Union: A Transatlantic Perspective On What It Would Take, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Jeffrey N Gordon

The project of creating a European Banking Union is designed to overcome the fatal link between sovereigns and their banks in the Eurozone. As part of this project, political agreement for a common supervision framework and a common resolution scheme has been reached with difficulty. However, the resolution framework is weak, underfunded and exhibits some serious flaws. Further, Member States’ disagreements appear to rule out a federalized deposit insurance scheme, commonly regarded as the necessary third pillar of a successful Banking Union. This paper argues for an organizational and capital structure substitute for these two shortcomings that can minimize the …

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Since 1978, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. The NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership organization created by and for corporate directors. …

Remembering George Michaely, Lawrence J. Trautman, Stanley Sporkin, John A. Dudley

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

This short essay is a memorial tribute about George P. Michaely, Jr. (1926 to 2014). After graduating from both the University of Notre Dame and its law school, he began his legal career, serving for approximately seven years as attorney in the Office of General Counsel. He was then appointed Chief Counsel of the Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance, where he served for approximately the next four years and was responsible for advising the Commission and the public concerning the interpretation of the statutory provisions and rules relating to the registration provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the …

Bounties For Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers Under The Dodd-Frank Act And Internal Revenue Code, Jennifer M. Pacella

Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.

In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million reward or “bounty” from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme by assisting thousands of U.S. taxpayers to hide their assets in Switzerland. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public’s common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which allows rewards for whistleblowers who are convicted …

Subjective Falsity Under Section 11 Of The Securities Act: Protecting Statements Of Opinion, Daniel H. Smith

Daniel H Smith

SUBJECTIVE FALSITY UNDER SECTION 11 OF THE SECURITIES ACT: PROTECTING STATEMENTS OF OPINION Daniel Hooper Smith Abstract Subjective Falsity Under Section 11 of the Securities Act: Protecting Statements of Opinion discusses the Sixth Circuit’s strict liability decision in Indiana State District Council of Laborers & Hod Carriers Pension & Welfare Fund v. Omnicare, Inc. for statements of opinion contained in registration statements, and its express departure from both the Second and Ninth Circuits. Consistent with the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits, this Article proposes that both objective and subjective falsity should be the requisite pleading standard for section 11 opinion …

Financial Institution Executive Compensation: The Problem Of Financially Motivated Excessive Risk-Taking, The Regulatory Response, And Common Sense Solutions, Jesse D. Gossett

Jesse D Gossett

This article addresses the issue of executive compensation at financial institutions as it relates to encouraging excessive risk-taking at these firms. First, I examine the economics of compensation and its relationship to risk-taking at financial firms. Next, I take a critical look at compensation provisions of Dodd-Frank (and to a lesser extent, Sarbanes-Oxley) and describe not only what Dodd-Frank does, but more importantly what it does not do. I then make specific recommendations for rules regulators should adopt under Dodd-Frank for the purpose of using compensation plans as a way of reducing excessive risk at financial institutions. I make these …

Admission Of Guilt: Sinking Teeth Into The Sec's Sweetheart Deals, Larissa Lee

Larissa Lee

Throughout its existence, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has allowed defendants to settle cases without admitting to the allegations of wrongdoing. This “neither admit nor deny” policy has received heavy criticism by judges, Congress, and the public, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. On June 18, 2013, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White announced the agency’s intention to require admissions of guilt in certain cases. While Chairman White did not articulate a clear standard of when admissions would be required, she did say that the agency would focus on the egregiousness of the defendant’s conduct and the …

Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Unfair self-dealing and expropriation of minority shareholders by a controlling shareholder are common business practices in developing countries (“bad-law countries”). Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, there are many questions unanswered in relation to behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. For example, a puzzle is that some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries voluntarily extract minority shareholders less than other controlling shareholders. Applying Mancur Olson’s framework of political theory of “banditry” to the context of corporate governance, this Article proposes that there are at least two categories of controlling shareholders. “Roving controllers” are dominant shareholders with …

Crossing The Fault Line In Corporate Criminal Law, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

Why is it that so few bankers have been prosecuted and punished in the wake of the financial meltdown? Pundits are quick to point to inadequate funding for addressing financial crime or, more cynically, the revolving door between government regulatory agencies and Wall Street. But the ultimate answer may be at once more banal and more dispiriting, lying as it does at the very foundations of our criminal law.

The conception of responsibility underpinning much of our criminal law contemplates the individual in isolation from others. As a result, our criminal law has tremendous difficulty tracking culpability in organizational contexts. …