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Full-Text Articles in Law
Watching Insider Trading Law Wobble: Obus, Newman, Salman, Two Martomas, And A Blaszczak, Donald C. Langevoort
Watching Insider Trading Law Wobble: Obus, Newman, Salman, Two Martomas, And A Blaszczak, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
“The crime of insider trading,” Judge Jed Rakoff has said, “is a straightforward concept that some courts have managed to complicate.” In the last eight years or so, insider trading law has wobbled visibly (in the Second Circuit in particular) in applying the standard for tipper-tippee liability originally set in the Supreme Court’s Dirks decision in 1983: from Obus (2012) to Newman (2014), with a detour to the Supreme Court in Salman (2016), and then two Martoma opinions (2017 and 2018). Most recently, the court of appeals offered what to many was a major surprise in its Blaszczak …
Market Intermediation, Publicness, And Securities Class Actions, Hillary A. Sale, Robert B. Thompson
Market Intermediation, Publicness, And Securities Class Actions, Hillary A. Sale, Robert B. Thompson
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Securities class actions play a crucial, if contested, role in the policing of securities fraud and the protection of securities markets. The theoretical understanding of these private enforcement claims needs to evolve to encompass the broader set of goals that underlie the securities regulatory impulse and the publicness of those goals. Further, a clear grasp of the modern securities class action also requires an updated understanding of how the role of market intermediation in securities transactions has reshaped the realities of securities litigation in public companies and the evolution of the fraud cause of action in the context of open-market …
Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market?: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort
Judgment Day For Fraud-On-The-Market?: Reflections On Amgen And The Second Coming Of Halliburton, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In November 2013, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Halliburton litigation to reconsider, and perhaps overrule, its seminal decision in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. Basic legitimated the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance, making securities class actions for claims of false corporate publicity viable, and such cases have become the central mechanisms for private securities fraud litigation. This move came after last Term’s Amgen decision, where four justices signaled their doubts about Basic. This essay looks at the connection between Amgen and the continuing viability of fraud-on-the-market litigation. How Halliburton comes out will likely depend on how the Court …
“Fine Distinctions” In The Contemporary Law Of Insider Trading, Donald C. Langevoort
“Fine Distinctions” In The Contemporary Law Of Insider Trading, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
William Cary’s opinion for the SEC in In re Cady, Roberts & Co. built the foundation on which the modern law of insider trading rests. This paper—a contribution to Columbia Law School’s recent celebration of Cary’s Cady Roberts opinion, explores some of these—particularly the emergence of a doctrine of “reckless” insider trading. Historically, the crucial question is this: how or why did the insider trading prohibition survive the retrenchment that happened to so many other elements of Rule 10b-5? It argues that the Supreme Court embraced the continuing existence of the “abstain or disclose” rule, and tolerated constructive fraud notwithstanding …
What Were They Thinking? Insider Trading And The Scienter Requirement, Donald C. Langevoort
What Were They Thinking? Insider Trading And The Scienter Requirement, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
On its face, the connection between insider trading regulation and the state of mind of the trader or tipper seems intuitive. Insider trading is a form of market abuse: taking advantage of a secret to which one is not entitled, generally in breach of some kind of fiduciary-like duty. This chapter examines both the legal doctrine and the psychology associated with this pursuit. There is much conceptual confusion in how we define unlawful insider trading—the quixotic effort to build a coherent theory of insider trading by reference to the law of fraud, rather than a more expansive market abuse standard—which …
Chasing The Greased Pig Down Wall Street: A Gatekeeper’S Guide To The Psychology, Culture And Ethics Of Financial Risk-Taking, Donald C. Langevoort
Chasing The Greased Pig Down Wall Street: A Gatekeeper’S Guide To The Psychology, Culture And Ethics Of Financial Risk-Taking, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The current financial crisis has once again focused attention on lawyers, corporate directors and auditors as gatekeepers, who are expected to introduce some degree of cognitive independence to the task of risk assessment and risk management in public companies, including financial services firms. This essay examines the psychological and cultural forces that may distort risk perception and risk motivation in hyper-competitive firms, beyond the standard economic incentives associated with agency costs and moral hazards, warning gatekeepers against too easily assuming that all is well when insiders display high levels of intensity, focus and devotion to hard-to-achieve goals. In fact, these …
The Sec And The Madoff Scandal: Three Narratives In Search Of A Story, Donald C. Langevoort
The Sec And The Madoff Scandal: Three Narratives In Search Of A Story, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This essay, part of a symposium on narrative in corporate law, considers various portrayals of the complicity of the SEC in the Bernard Madoff scandal--including the Commission's own Inspector General's report issued in September 2009. It considers possible explanations (revolving door problems, incompetence and sloth, etc.) but suggests that the story is deeper and more frustrating, arising out of the relative poverty in which the SEC operates, which in turn leads to habits of thought and action that leave too much unnoticed and undone. The interesting question, then: why the poverty? The essay concludes with a political explanation. While by …
Brief For Professors James D. Cox Et Al. As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta, No. 06-43 (U.S. June 11, 2007), Donald C. Langevoort
Brief For Professors James D. Cox Et Al. As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta, No. 06-43 (U.S. June 11, 2007), Donald C. Langevoort
U.S. Supreme Court Briefs
No abstract provided.
On Leaving Corporate Executives "Naked, Homeless And Without Wheels": Corporate Fraud, Equitable Remedies, And The Debate Over Entity Versus Individual Liability, Donald C. Langevoort
On Leaving Corporate Executives "Naked, Homeless And Without Wheels": Corporate Fraud, Equitable Remedies, And The Debate Over Entity Versus Individual Liability, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
There is a lively debate about the relative merits of entity versus individual liability in cases involving securities fraud. After reviewing this debate in the context of both private securities litigation and SEC enforcement, this paper considers whether the legal tools available against individual executives are adequate, and if not, what changes might be made. The main focus is on equitable remedies, especially rescission and restitution, under both state and federal law. As to the former, Vice Chancellor Strine’s opinion in In re Healthsouth offers an interesting template, although there are limits on the usefulness of derivative suits to police …
Are Judges Motivated To Create "Good" Securities Fraud Doctrine?, Donald C. Langevoort
Are Judges Motivated To Create "Good" Securities Fraud Doctrine?, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
‘How Do Judges Maximize? (The Same Way Everybody Else Does – Boundedly): Rules of Thumb in Securities Fraud Opinions’, by Stephen M. Bainbridge and G. Mitu Gulati, confronts the reader with a theory about judicial behavior in the face of complex, "unexciting" cases such as those involving securities fraud. The story is simple: few judges find any opportunity for personal satisfaction or enhanced reputation here, so they simply try to minimize cognitive effort, off-loading much of the work that has to be done to their clerks. The evidence that Bainbridge and Gulati offer is the creation of some ten or …