Law Commons^™

Give Me Equity Or Give Me Death - The Role Of Competition And Compensation In Building Silicon Valley, Richard A. Booth

Working Paper Series

In this essay, I argue that the preeminence of Silicon Valley as an incubator of technology companies is attributable to equity compensation. Ronald Gilson, relying on the work of AnnaLee Saxenian and others who have noted the tendency of Silicon Valley employees to job hop, has suggested that California law prohibiting the enforcement of non-compete agreements was a major factor in the rise of Silicon Valley (and the demise of Route 128). I extend this line of thought by suggesting that California employers may have relied on equity compensation as a substitute way to bind employees. I argue further that …

Developing Governance And Regulation For Emerging Capital And Securities Markets, Ali A. Ibrahim

Georgetown Law Graduate Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Convergence Of Corporate Governance And Islamic Financial Services Industry: Toward Islamic Financial Services Securities Market, Ali A. Ibrahim

Georgetown Law Graduate Paper Series

This paper briefly discusses the significance of corporate governance for the Islamic financial services industry. Furthermore, it predicts that the Islamic financial services industry is likely to converge to modern governance practices. The paper also argues that the industry needs to have a homogenous and specialized regional securities market to realize its true potential.

Measuring Efficiency In Corporate Law: The Role Of Shareholder Primacy, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The shareholder primacy norm defines the objective of the corporation as maximization of shareholder wealth. Law and economics scholars have incorporated the shareholder primacy norm into their empirical analyses of regulatory efficiency. An increasingly influential body of scholarship uses empirical methodology to evaluate legal rules that allocate power within the corporation. By embracing the shareholder primacy norm, empirical scholars offer normative assessments about regulatory choices based on the effect of legal rules on measures of shareholder value such as stock price, net profits, and Tobin’s Q.

This Article challenges the foundations of using the shareholder primacy norm to judge corporate …

Using Spread And Net Trading Range To Measure Risk In Suitability Cases, Richard A. Booth

Working Paper Series

Suitability is one of the most common issues that arises in securities arbitrations. Yet it is also one of the most difficult issues to resolve. Up to now there has been no easy and reliable way to compare the risk of one stock or portfolio with another stock or portfolio measured as of the time the investment decision in question was made. As I argued in an earlier article, spread is potentially a promising way to measure risk in real time as perceived collectively by competing market makers. But with the advent of decimal quotes and other recent changes in …

Compensating Power: An Analysis Of Rents And Rewards In The Mutual Fund Industry, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

The allegations of malfeasance in the investment management industry - market timing, late trading, revenue sharing, and several others - involve a broad range of mutual fund operations. This Article seeks to explain the common source of these irregularities by focusing upon a trait they share: the practice of investment advisers' capitalizing upon their managerial influence to increase assets under management in order to generate greater fees from those assets. This Article extends theories of executive compensation into the context of investment management to understand the extraction of rents by mutual fund advisers. Investment advisers, as collective groups of portfolio …

Securities Mediation: Dispute Resolution For The Individual Investor, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this article will provide a brief history of ADR in the securities industry (primarily arbitration), and then will describe the emergence of mediation as an alternative to arbitration. Part II will explore the state and federal statutory regulations that arguably govern the securities mediation process, and their impact on procedural and substantive justice. In particular, this section will review the applicability to and impact on securities mediation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (1934 Act), the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), and state mediation statutes, including the Uniform Mediation Act. In this section, I will argue that …

Regulatory Responses To Investor Irrationality: The Case Of The Research Analyst, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

An extensive body of behavioral economics literature suggests that investors do not behave with perfect rationality. Instead, investors are subject to a variety of biases that may cause them to react inappropriately to information. The policy challenge posed by this observation is to identify the appropriate response to investor irrationality. In particular, should regulators attempt to protect investors from bad investment decisions that may be the result of irrational behavior?

This Article considers the appropriate regulatory response to investor irrationality within the concrete context of the research analyst. Many commentators have argued that analyst conflicts of interest led to biased …

Supersize Pay, Incentive Compatibility, And The Volatile Shareholder Interest, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.