Law Commons^™

Untangling Attorney Retainers From Creditor Claims, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Jesse Wynn

Faculty Publications

Clients will often use a retainer to secure an attorney’s representation. But clients in economic distress may have creditors that are eager to access the client’s funds in the attorney’s hands. Attorneys, clients, courts, and regulators have struggled to understand who has the best claim to such retainer funds. In this Article, we attempt to untangle the most common areas of confusion. We conclude that Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) offers strong protection for an attorney’s interest in client retainers through security interests, even though some courts have misapplied the UCC in this context. Further, we recommend …

When Is A Warranty Not A Warranty?: Deconstructing The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act’S Narrow Definition Of “Warranty”, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Articles

Prior to the adoption of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”), warranties of goods required reliance on the affirmation or promise relating to the goods for liability to attach. The UCC changed this standard from a reliance standard to a “basis of the bargain” standard. This shift has caused much confusion as to whether the new standard was meant to completely eliminate reliance as a relevant factor, or if reliance still plays a primary role in warranty analysis. Adding to this area of law is the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (“MMWA” or “the Act”), which was enacted to address concerns that sellers’ …

The Uniform Commercial Code Survey: Introduction, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Articles

The survey that follows highlights the most important developments of 2020 dealing with domestic and international sales of goods, personal property leases, payments letters of credit, documents of title, investment securities, and secured transactions.

The Economics Of Leasing, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Leasing may be the most important legal institution that has received virtually no systematic scholarly attention. Real property leasing is familiar in the context of residential tenancies. But it is also widely used in commercial contexts, including office buildings and shopping centers. Personal property leasing, which was rarely encountered before World War II, has more recently exploded on a world-wide basis, with everything from autos to farm equipment to airplanes being leased. This article seeks to develop a composite picture of the defining features of leases and why leasing is such a widespread and highly successful economic institution. The reasons …

Fraud, Letters Of Credit, And The Uniform Commercial Code: It Is Time To Untether The Independence Principle, Richard Flint

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this Article is to evaluate the efficacy of the fraud exception to the independence principle in letters of credit law in the case of both commercial and standby letters of credit. In doing so, a primary focus will be to identify which of the various parties to a letter of credit transaction the present fraud exception "protects" and to evaluate the policy justifications for why these persons are viewed by the law to be eligible recipients of protection.

Social Justice And Deposit Return Calculations: A Study Of Success And Failure In Commercial Law Reform, William H. Widen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Article 2 Of The Ucc: Some Thoughts On Success Or Failure In The Twenty-First Century, Robert A. Hillman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The volume of litigation on Uniform Commercial Code Article 2, along with the rise of e-commerce, raises the question of whether Article 2 can succeed in the twenty-first century. There are, of course, many ways to measure success or failure of legislation. One strategy, applied here, is to evaluate Article 2 against the UCC’s ambitious “purposes and policies” of simplifying, clarifying, and modernizing commercial law, supporting commercial practices, and promoting uniformity of the law among the states. In doing so, I ask three questions that help determine when particular sections of Article 2 impede these goals and are ripe for …

Lessons From Case Study Of Secured Transactions With Bitcoin, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

There has been some discussion about the flaws in using secured transactions law, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.), to govern commercial transactions involving Bitcoins as collateral. Flaws necessitate the urgency of immediately fixing of the existing law. In the case of Bitcoins there is still much to learn about the marketplace for secured transactions with Bitcoins as collateral. The rapid change in technology, the speed of new ideas proposed, the constant announcements of adoption and adaptation of smart contracts in transactions, the volatility in cryptocurrency value, the endless reports of scams, and the rise of dark pools …

Contract Law's Predominant Purpose Test And The Law-Fact Distinction, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Remedies In The Ucc: Some Critical Thoughts, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

I thank the conference organizers and the law review for giving me the opportunity to vent some of my frustrations with the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). I have expressed my concerns with the Code’s overreliance on “custom and usage” elsewhere, and will not pursue that further here. Nor will I bemoan the Code’s invocation of good faith to undo the parties’ balancing of flexibility and reliance. I will confine my discussion to contract remedies. But I have to begin by noting one section I simply do not understand. Why on earth would the Code drafters in § 2–718(2)(b) have required …

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.

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

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 …

Conceptualizing Cryptolaw, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Sweden transfers its real property recording system to the blockchain, a software protocol that enables public, cryptographically secure transaction verification without reliance upon a trusted third party. Dubai plans to issue blockchain-based government documents. The United States Department of Health and Human Services investigates blockchain-based systems for managing health data. Illinois explores blockchain-based applications for use in the Illinois government. News of governments and public-private partnerships developing blockchain-based legal applications increasingly splash across the headlines; however the law-makers using blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) systems to implement legal processes do not systematically consider the broader implications of their …

Apple Pay, Bitcoin, And Consumers: The Abcs Of Future Public Payments Law, Mark Edwin Burge

Faculty Scholarship

As technology rolls out ongoing and competing streams of payments innovation, exemplified by Apple Pay (mobile payments) and Bitcoin (cryptocurrency), the law governing these payments appears hopelessly behind the curve. The patchwork of state, federal, and private legal rules seems more worthy of condemnation than emulation. This Article argues, however, that the legal and market developments of the last several decades in payment systems provide compelling evidence of the most realistic and socially beneficial future for payments law. The paradigm of a comprehensive public law regulatory scheme for payment systems, exemplified by Articles 3 and 4 of the Uniform Commercial …

An Historical Overview Of Ucc Article 9, Peter Winship

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This book chapter traces the history of Article 9 (Secured Transactions) of the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code. After setting out the pre-1940 legal setting in the United States for the use of movable property in secured transactions, the chapter studies three stages in the evolution of Article 9: (1) the drafting of the first “official” text (1947-1951), (2) the continuing revision of the text and its slow adoption by states (1952-1990), and (3) the thorough-going revision that lead to the present 1998 official text and subsequent minor amendments (1990-present). The chapter notes the growing complexity of the text and the …

Advancing A Framework For Regulating Cryptocurrency Payments Intermediaries, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article looks at competing models for regulating providers of services to individuals and businesses that take cryptocurrencies in payment for goods and services, including operators of online wallets and exchanges, and other cryptocurrency market intermediaries whose functions resemble "money service businesses" or "money transmission." We conclude that, in addition to whatever "money services" or "money transmission "prudential regulation the States or federal government may adopt, the operation of wallets and exchanges requires a new commercial law that lays out rights and liabilities of cryptocurrency users in a robust and transparent fashion. We use Article 4A of the Uniform Commercial …

Delaware’S Implied Contractual Covenant Of Good Faith And “Sibling Rivalry” Among Equity Holders, Daniel S. Kleinberger

Faculty Scholarship

An obligation of good faith and fair dealing is implied in every common law contract and is codified in the Uniform Commercial Code (“U.C.C”). The terminology differs: Some jurisdictions refer to an “implied covenant;” others to an “implied contractual obligation;” still others to an “implied duty.” But whatever the label, the concept is understood by the vast majority of U.S. lawyers as a matter of commercial rather than entity law. And, to the vast majority of corporate lawyers, “good faith” does not mean contract law but rather conjures up an important aspect of a corporate director’s duty of loyalty.

Nonetheless, …

The Restatement (Second) Of Contracts Reasonably Certain Terms Requirement: A Model Of Neoclassical Contract Law And A Model Of Confusion And Inconsistency, Daniel P. O'Gorman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Compensation Myth And U.C.C. Section 2-713, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

This article seeks to bring greater discipline to the analysis of market damages by probing two basic assumptions that are routinely made in discussions of section 2-713: (1) that overcompensation concerns justify judicial interference with the buyer's choice of remedy; and (2) that the relevant market price, in all cases, is the market price that the aggrieved buyer would be required to pay if she wished to make a substitute purchase of goods elsewhere.

Fifty: Shades Of Grey--Uncertainty About Extrinsic Evidence And Parol Evidence After All These Ucc Years, David G. Epstein

Law Faculty Publications

Lawyers and judges have been working with the Uniform Commercial Code for about fifty years. Most states adopted the Uniform Commercial Code between 1960 and 1965.

Notwithstanding these years of experience and the importance of certainty to parties entering into commercial transactions, there is still considerable confusion over the use of extrinsic evidence, parol evidence and the parol evidence rule in answering the questions (1) what are the terms of a contract for the sale of goods and (2) what do those contract terms mean. No "black and white rules"-just various "shades of grey."

This essay explores the reasons for …

Turnover Actions And The “Floating Check” Controversy, David R. Hague

Faculty Articles

When a debtor files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a Chapter 7 trustee is appointed and is charged with collecting and reducing to money the property of the bankruptcy estate. One of the most basic collection methods a trustee possesses is its turnover power under § 542(a) of the Bankruptcy Code. Pursuant to § 542(a), an entity in possession, custody, or control, during the bankruptcy case, of property that the trustee may use, sell, or lease, must deliver to the trustee, and account for, such property or the value of such property.

An interesting issue has arisen that is placing debtors …

Mezzanine Debt And Preferred Equity In Real Estate, Andrew R. Berman

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Sale Of Goods Contract Not To Be Performed Within A Year: Is The Uniform Commercial Code Statute Of Frauds Provision Exclusive?, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

A Fundamental Flaw With Uncitral's Approach To Cross-Border Secured Transactions: The Failure To Address Creditor Due Diligence Issues, John J. Chung

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Sale Of Goods 2011, Gregory M. Duhl

Faculty Scholarship

In 2011, U.S. courts analyzed the scope, formation, and remedies provisions of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (“CISG”). Although the number of cases arising under the CISG is relatively small compared with those under the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.), the cases discussed in this survey remind us that U.S. courts are comfortable in applying the CISG. A comprehensive survey setting forth legal developments in the United States during the past nine years involving the CISG follows the Uniform Commercial Code Survey in this issue of The Business Lawyer. That survey illustrates that the …

Turkey's Accession To The Cisg: The Significance For Turkey And For Sales Transactions With U.S. Contracting Parties, William P. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) entered into force for Turkey on August 1, 2011. This article considers the significance of Turkey’s accession to the CISG as part of Turkey’s continuing engagement with systems of international trade, especially as relates to sales transactions with U.S. contracting parties. This article urges the Turkish bar to recognize that the CISG is a viable alternative to various potentially applicable bodies of domestic sales law, and the article offers some guidance regarding proper understanding and application of the CISG. This article also offers comparative analysis of some …

Electronic Chattel Paper: Invitation Accepted, Jane K. Winn

Articles

In 1999, Revised U.C.C. Article 9 governing secured lending was updated to permit the creation of "electronic chattel paper" ("ECP"). Traditional chattel paper is used widely in some sectors of the US economy to finance equipment purchases in part because a chattel paper financers who perfects by taking possession can achieve priority over a pre-existing secured lender who perfected by filing. Revised U.C.C. § 9-105 defined a new form of "control" over ECP that would be treated as equivalent to possession of traditional chattel paper, permitting chattel paper financers to retain their superpriority status with electronic documents.

Because chattel paper …

Late Delivery--Measure Of Damages, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Express Warranty Of Fitness For A Particular Purpose: Extent Of Overlap In Same Factual Context With Implied Warranty Of Fitness For A Particular Purpose, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Reliance On Oral Promises: Statute Of Frauds And Promissory Estoppel, David G. Epstein

Law Faculty Publications

Reliance on oral promises is the basis not only for law school hypotheticals but also for real world litigation. Consider the following hypothetical based on the 1970 Supreme Court of Hawaii decision in Mcintosh v. Murphy: Tex moved from Lubbock, Texas to Oklahoma to work for Murphy Motors Chevrolet-Oldsmobile, an Okmulgee car dealership. Tex signed a lease for an apartment in Okmulgee. After two months as assistant sales manager, Murphy Motors fired Tex. Tex sued Murphy Motors alleging breach of an alleged oral agreement that she would be employed for two years. It is understandable that a jury might not …

Implementing The Standby Letter For Credit Convention With The Law Of Wyoming, James J. White

Articles

For the first time in American practice, we propose to implement a convention by a federal adoption of law previously enacted by the states – from Wyoming to New York – to implement the Convention on Independent Guarantees and Standby Letters of Credit (“Convention”).1