Law Commons^™

The Tax Treatment Of Tokens: What Does It Betoken?, David J. Shakow

All Faculty Scholarship

Digital tokens have been used to raise substantial amounts of money. But little attention has been paid to the tax consequences surrounding their issuance and sale. There are significant potential tax liabilities lurking in the use of digital tokens. But, because of the anonymity inherent in the blockchain structures used for the issuance of tokens and payments for them, there is a significant question as to whether those tax liabilities will ever be collected.

Who Bleeds When The Wolves Bite? A Flesh-And-Blood Perspective On Hedge Fund Activism And Our Strange Corporate Governance System, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the effects of hedge fund activism and so-called wolf pack activity on the ordinary human beings—the human investors—who fund our capital markets but who, as indirect of owners of corporate equity, have only limited direct power to ensure that the capital they contribute is deployed to serve their welfare and in turn the broader social good.

Most human investors in fact depend much more on their labor than on their equity for their wealth and therefore care deeply about whether our corporate governance system creates incentives for corporations to create and sustain jobs for them. And because …

American Pipe Tolling, Statutes Of Repose, And Protective Filings: An Empirical Study, David Freeman Engstrom, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper offers a conceptual and empirical analysis of a key issue that overhangs CalPERS v. ANZ Securities, soon to be decided by the Supreme Court. In particular, the paper offers an empirical estimate of the plausible quantity of wasteful protective filings that putative class members might make if the Court were to hold that American Pipe tolling does not apply to statutes of repose in the federal securities laws.

Standing Voting Instructions: Empowering The Excluded Retail Investor, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Despite the increasing importance of shareholder voting, regulators have paid little attention to the rights of retail investors who own approximately 30% of publicly traded companies but who vote less than 30% of their shares. A substantial factor contributing to this low turnout is the antiquated mechanism by which retail investors vote. The federal proxy voting rules place primary responsibility for facilitating retail voting in the hands of custodial brokers who have limited incentives to develop workable procedures, and current regulatory restrictions impede market-based innovation that incorporate technological innovations.

One of the most promising such innovations is standing voting instructions …

Security Interests In Book-Entry Securities In Japan: Should Japanese Law Embrace Perfection By Control Agreement And Security Interests In Securities Accounts?, Kumiko Koens, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The paper proposes two significant modifications of Japan’s Act on Transfer of Bonds, Shares, etc. (BETA). First, it suggests the control agreement method of transferring an interest in securities that is effective against third parties. Under the BETA, the creation of an effective interest in book-entry securities requires book entries in the securities accounts of the transferor and the transferee. Under the control agreement approach, the transferor, transferee, and the transferor’s securities intermediary would agree that (i) the intermediary would act on the instructions of the transferee with respect to securities credited to the transferor’s securities account or (ii) the …