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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Law
Credit Rating Agencies And The 'Worldwide Credit Crisis': The Limits Of Reputation, The Insufficiency Of Reform, And A Proposal For Improvement, John P. Hunt
John P Hunt
The “worldwide credit crisis” has thrust credit rating agencies into the spotlight, with attention focused on their ratings of novel structured finance products. Policymakers have undertaken a number of initiatives intended to address perceived problems with such ratings – enhancing competition, promoting transparency, reducing conflicts of interest, and reducing ratings-dependent regulation. These approaches are all broadly consistent with the dominant academic theory of rating agencies, the “reputational capital” model, which is taken to imply that under the right circumstances a well-functioning reputation mechanism will deter low-quality ratings. The policy initiatives currently under consideration can be seen as efforts to fix …
Anonymity In Cyberspace: What Can We Learn From John Doe?, Lyrissa Lidsky
Anonymity In Cyberspace: What Can We Learn From John Doe?, Lyrissa Lidsky
Faculty Publications
This Article examines the evolution of the law governing libel suits against anonymous “John Doe” defendants based on Internet speech. Between 1999 and 2009, courts crafted new First Amendment doctrines to protect Internet speakers from having their anonymity automatically stripped away upon the filing of a libel action. Courts also adapted existing First Amendment protections for hyperbole, satire and other non-factual speech to protect the distinctive discourse of Internet message boards. Despite these positive developments, the current state of the law is unsatisfactory. Because the scope of protection for anonymous Internet speech varies greatly by jurisdiction, resourceful plaintiffs can make …
Reputation As Property In Virtual Economies, Joseph Blocher
Reputation As Property In Virtual Economies, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Antitrust Of Reputation Mechanisms: Institutional Economics And Concerted Refusals To Deal, Barak D. Richman
The Antitrust Of Reputation Mechanisms: Institutional Economics And Concerted Refusals To Deal, Barak D. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
An agreement among competitors to refuse to deal with another party is traditionally per se illegal under the antitrust laws. But coordinated refusals to deal are often necessary to punish wrongdoers, and thus to deter undesirable behavior that state-sponsored courts cannot reach. When viewed as a mechanism to govern transactions and induce socially desirable cooperative behavior, coordinated refusals to deal can sustain valuable reputation mechanisms. This paper employs institutional economics to understand the role of coordinated refusals to deal in merchant circles and to evaluate the economic desirability of permitting such coordinated actions among competitors. It concludes that if the …
Internet Defamation As Profit Center: The Monetization Of Online Harassment, Ann Bartow
Internet Defamation As Profit Center: The Monetization Of Online Harassment, Ann Bartow
Law Faculty Scholarship
Efforts to decrease the sexist aspects of online fora have been largely ineffective, and in some instances seemingly counterproductive, in the sense that they have provoked even greater amounts of abuse and harassment with a gendered aspect. And so, in the wake of a series of high profile episodes of cyber sexual harassment, and a grotesque abundance of low profile ones, a new business model was launched. Promising to clean up and monitor online information to defuse the visible impact of coordinated harassment campaigns, a number of entities began to market themselves as knights in cyber shining armor, ready to …
Soft Law As Delegation, Timothy L. Meyer
Soft Law As Delegation, Timothy L. Meyer
Timothy Meyer
This article examines one of the most important trends in international legal governance since the end of the Cold War: the rise of “soft law,” or legally non-binding instruments that are given legal effect through domestic law or internationally binding agreements such as treaties. Scholars studying the design of international agreements have long puzzled over why states use soft law. The decision to make an agreement or obligation legally binding is within the control of the states negotiating the content of the legal obligations. Basic contract theory predicts that parties to a contract would want their agreement to be as …