Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Fathoming Potential In China—How Ship Lease Financing Arrangements And Free Trade Zones May Open Markets To Non-Bank Investent, Rick Beaumont

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Merger And Acquisition Due Diligence Part Ii- The Devil In The Details, James A. Sherer, Taylor M. Hoffman, Kevin M. Wallace, Eugenio E. Ortiz, Trevor J. Satnick

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Our prior scholarship examined the legal and technical challenges involved in modern Merger & Acquisition ("M&A") due diligence practices associated with transactions ("Deals"), given recent but steady advances in technology and related increases in sophistication seen in Deal participants-primarily the organizations or assets targeted (the "Targets") as part of the Deal, and the organizations that pursued and/or resulted from the Deal (the "Acquirers"). We then proposed a framework addressing five particular verticals of interest and concern: data privacy ("DP"), information security ("IS"), e-Discovery, information governance ("IG"), and the due diligence and record keeping associated with the Deal itself ("Deal Information") …

The Wolf At The Door: The Impact Of Hedge Fund Activism On Corporate Governance, John C. Coffee Jr., Darius Palia

Faculty Scholarship

Hedge fund activism has recently spiked, almost hyperbolically. No one disputes this, and most view it as a significant change. But, their reasons differ. Some see activist hedge funds as the natural champions of dispersed and diversified shareholders, who are less capable of collective action in their own interest. A key fact about activist hedge funds is that they are undiversified and typically hold significant stakes in the companies that comprise their portfolios. Given their larger stakes and focused holdings, they are less subject to the “rational apathy” that characterizes more diversified and even indexed investors, such as pension and …

"Special," Vestigial, Or Visionary? What Bank Regulation Tells Us About The Corporation - And Vice Versa, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A remarkable yet seldom noted set of parallels exists between modern U.S. bank regulation, on the one hand, and what used to be garden-variety American corporate law, on the other hand. For example, just as bank charters are matters not of right but of conditional privilege even today, so were all corporate charters not long ago. Just as chartered banks are authorized to engage only in limited, enumerated activities even to- day, so were all corporations restricted not long ago. And just as banks are subject to strict capital regulation even today, so were all corporations not long ago.

In …

Investment Accelerators, Brad Bernthal

Publications

This Article documents and explains the legal and extralegal dimensions of Investment Accelerator (IA) systems. Accelerators are a new class of institution that supports entrepreneurs and early stage startups. Investment Accelerators take an ownership stake in companies that participate in an intensive, time-limited program. Interviews reveal the surprising extent to which parties in many Investment Accelerators exchange economic value in the absence of formal agreement. Startups share proprietary information with highly accomplished mentors who, in turn, contribute their time and connections without direct compensation. This under-contracted and informal arrangement raises concerns about opportunism. Data from an original investigation presents a …

Contemplating The Gap-Filling Role Of Social Intrapreneurship, Tamara Belinfanti

Articles & Chapters

Social intrapreneurs occupy an intersectional space within the large corporate form at the crossroads of innovation, profit, and social good. They are often described as "disruptive" because they devise new ways to tackle problems, usually social in nature, in a manner that disrupts traditional operating models or long-standing assumptions. Although much has been written about social intrapreneurs in managerial literature, legal literature has been silent. This Article reverses that trend and develops a theory of social intrapreneurship from a corporate law perspective. Specifically, this Article posits that social intrapreneurship in terms of praxis, characteristics, and process can be conceptualized as …

Preserving The Corporate Superego In A Time Of Activism: An Essay On Ethics And Economics, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

This essay focuses on the impact of recent changes in corporate governance on ethical behavior within the public corporation. It argues that a style of corporate behavior – one characterized by a risk tolerant, even reckless, pursuit of short-term profits and a disregard for the interests of non-shareholder constituencies – is attributable in significant part to recent changes in corporate governance, including the rise of hedge fund activism, greater use of incentive compensation, and the appearance of blockholder directors. It then surveys feasible responses intended to strengthen the role of the boards as the corporation’s conscience and superego. Given the …

The Challenge Of Fiduciary Regulation: The Investment Advisors Act After Seventy-Five Years, Roberta S. Karmel

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Seventy-five years after its enactment the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 has advanced from a relatively weak statute merely registering advisers with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to a more robust law imposing fiduciary responsibilities on advisers. Over the years, the number of investment advisers and the number of their clients have increased greatly. The SEC therefore has been pressured by Congress to develop a harmonized fiduciary standard for broker-dealers and advisers and also to develop and enforce a greater degree of oversight over the advisory industry. These developments have raised the questions of how to fund such efforts …

A Cautionary Look At A Cautionary Doctrine, Andrew W. Fine

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Optimism is an indispensable element of effective salesmanship. It is therefore quite natural for the directors of public companies to want to optimistically tout the potential long-term benefits of investing in their companies. After all, directors of public companies must be empowered to attract the attention and money of American investors. But what happens if these long-term projections fail to come true? Who is to blame for long-term projections that are simply unrealistic? A doctrine called the “bespeaks caution” doctrine has emerged in order to govern these inquiries, and holds that these optimistic forward-looking statements are legally immunized provided that …

The Enduring Legacy Of Modern Efficient Market Theory After Halliburton V. John, Mark Klock

Georgia Law Review

In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court approved the fraud on the market theory for securities trading in an efficient market thus enabling securities class action plaintiffs to establish their required reliance element of the case through a rebuttable presumption. Basic v. Levinson held that efficient markets incorporate publicly disseminated information and investors who purchased or sold securities in an efficient market therefore relied on any publicly disseminated misinformation. For more than a quarter century since Basic, the efficient market theory has sustained a barrage of assaults from commentators who object to the use of economic theory in legal decision making …

Regulating The U.S. Treasury Market, Jerry W. Markham

Faculty Publications

The market for U.S. Treasury securities is critical to our monetary policy and government funding. It also serves as a benchmark for pricing other investments and has provided a haven for investors seeking safety and stability. However, concern has recently arisen that “primary dealers” in that market might have manipulated prices. In addition, an unusual market volatility event that occurred in October 2014, and the growth of high-frequency trading have raised further questions over the adequacy of regulation in that market. This article addresses those concerns. It first describes the U.S. Treasury market and identifies efforts by traders over the …

Corporate Control And Idiosyncratic Vision, Zohar Goshen, Assaf Hamdani

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a novel theory of corporate control. It does so by shedding new light on corporate-ownership structures and challenging the prevailing model of controlling shareholders as essentially opportunistic actors who seek to reap private benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Our core claim is that entrepreneurs value corporate control because it allows them to pursue their vision (i.e., any business strategy that the entrepreneur genuinely believes will produce an above-market rate of return) in the manner they see fit. We call the subjective value an entrepreneur attaches to her vision the entrepreneur’s idiosyncratic vision. Our framework identifies …

Short-Termism And Long-Termism, Michal Barzuza, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

A significant debate in corporate law and finance concerns the role of activist investors (especially hedge funds) in corporate governance. Activists, it is often alleged, imprudently privilege short term earnings over superior (but less liquid) long term investments. Activists counter that they target managers who unjustifiably cling to questionable strategies. While this debate is hardly new, it has grown increasingly fractious of late. We analyze the activism debate within a theoretical securities-market setting. In our framework – which draws from an emerging literature in empirical and experimental finance – managers are differentially overconfident (causing them to favor long-term projects), while …

The New Road To Serfdom: The Curse Of Bigness And The Failure Of Antitrust, Carl T. Bogus

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues for a paradigm shift in modern antitrust policy. Rather than being concerned exclusively with consumer welfare, antitrust law should also be concerned with consolidated corporate power. Regulators and courts should consider the social and political, as well as the economic, consequences of corporate mergers. The vision that antitrust must be a key tool for limiting consolidated corporate power has a venerable legacy, extending back to the origins of antitrust law in early seventeenth century England, running throughout American history, and influencing the enactment of U.S. antitrust laws. However, the Chicago School’s view that antitrust law should be …

Political Uncertainty And The Market For Ipos, Jay B. Kesten, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a simple theory and model of the effects of political uncertainty on the market for IPOs. Our model generates four central predictions: (i) increased political uncertainty reduces the frequency of IPOs; (ii) firms that choose to conduct an IPO during periods of political uncertainty are, on average, of higher quality and generate greater return on investment in the secondary market; (iii) political uncertainty increases the cost of capital for IPO firms; but (iv) underpricing is less pronounced during periods of heightened political uncertainty. We demonstrate that each of these predictions is consistent with available empirical evidence.

Our …

Front Matter

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwulaw: Susan Schwab Heyman's Post: Defining The Boundaries Of Insider Trading, Susan Schwab Heyman

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Savings And Loan Service Corporations: Regulations In Ohio, Ronald E. Alexander

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this article is to examine Ohio's scheme for regulating service corporations. This examination includes the history of service corporation regulation in Ohio, the scope of permissible business activities of these corporations, investment limitations for parent savings associations and the supervisory authority of the Ohio Division of Building and Loan Associations [Division]. Perhaps this article will also provide a useful vehicle for judging whether the risks perceived by the GAO and FHLBB can arise from a single state's regulatory scheme for service corporations. It must be remembered that any such risks inherent in Ohio's scheme threaten not only …

A.E. Staley Maunufacturing Co. V. Commissioner: Life After Indopco: Tax Treatment Of A Target Corporation's Unsuccessful Hostile Tender Offer Defense Fees, Corinne E. Anderson

Akron Law Review

One specific concern was whether the INDOPCO decision represented a per se rule that takeover-related expenses must always be capitalized. The recent Seventh Circuit decision of A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co. v. Commissioner appears to have answered this question in the negative. In Staley, the Court of Appeals held that the majority of investment banker fees paid in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat a hostile tender offer were deductible as "ordinary and necessary" business expenses. Alternatively, those expenses allocable to the company's unsuccessful efforts to engage in alternate transactions were deductible as "abandoned transactions. ' However, fees paid by Staley to …

Microfinance: Importing Regulations In Reforms For The Real Small Businesses, Triet Leminh

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paying For Risk: Bankers, Compensation, And Competition, Simone M. Sepe, Charles K. Whitehead

Cornell Law Review

Efforts to control bank risk address the wrong problem in the wrong way. They presume that the financial crisis was caused by CEOs who failed to super­vise risk-taking employees. The responses focus on exe­cutive pay, believing that exe­cu­tives will bring non-execu­tives into line—using incen­­­­tives to manage risk-taking—once their own pay is regu­lated. What they over­look is the effect on non-executive pay of the com­pe­­ti­­tion for talent. Even if exe­­cu­tive pay is regu­lated, and exe­cu­tives act in the bank’s best interests, they will still be trapped into providing incentives that encourage risk-taking by non-executives due to the negative exter­nality that arises …

Minority And Women Entrepreneurs: Building Capital, Networks, And Skills, Michael S. Barr

Other Publications

The United States has an enviable entrepreneurial culture and a track record of building new companies. Yet new and small business owners often face particular challenges, including lack of access to capital, insufficient business networks for peer support, investment, and business opportunities, and the absence of the full range of essential skills necessary to lead a business to survive and grow. Women and minority entrepreneurs often face even greater obstacles. While business formation is, of course, primarily a matter for the private sector, public policy can and should encourage increased rates of entrepreneurship, and the capital, networks, and skills essential …

Phishing And Vat Fraud In Co2 Permits: The Digital Invoice Customs Exchange Solution, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

In accordance with Directive 2003/87/EC of October 13, 2003, trade in greenhouse gas emissions commenced in the European Union (EU) on January 1, 2005. The EU-Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) was born.

The EU has a Value Added Tax (VAT). VAT is a transaction-based levy on all trade in goods and services. Each Member State has a VAT as a condition of membership. Until January 3, 2017 transactions in CO2 permits are taxed as services. After this date they are exempt as financial instruments.

This change in VAT treatment of CO2 permits is directly attributable to rampant fraud in the market. …

Balance And Team Production, Kelli A. Alces

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, those holding the shareholder primacy view that the purpose of a corporation is to earn a profit for its shareholders have been debating with those who believe that corporations exist to serve broader societal interests. Adolph Berle and Merrick Dodd began the conversation over eighty years ago, and it continues today, with voices at various places along a spectrum of possible corporate purposes participating. Unfortunately, over time, the various sides of the debate have begun to talk past each other rather than engage with each other and have lost sight of whatever common ground they may be able …

The Boundaries Of "Team" Production Of Corporate Governance, Anthony J. Casey, M. Todd Henderson

Seattle University Law Review

We examine the cooperative production of corporate governance. We explain that this production does not occur exclusively within a “team” or “firm.” Rather, several aspects of corporate governance are quintessentially market products. Like Blair and Stout, we view the shareholder as but one of many stakeholders in a corporation. Where we depart from their analysis is in our view of the boundaries of a firm. We suggest that they overweight the intrafirm production of control. Focusing on the primacy of a board of directors, Blair and Stout posit a hierarchical team that governs the economic enterprise. We observe, however, that …

The Team Production Model As A Paradigm, Brian R. Cheffins

Seattle University Law Review

Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout suggested a few years after the publication of their 1999 Virginia Law Review article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, that their team production model was poised to emerge as part of a new corporate law “paradigm.” In so doing, they specifically invoked Thomas Kuhn’s well-known analysis of scientific revolutions. This Article revisits Blair and Stout’s team production theory by offering a critique of their claim that their model is destined to become a new corporate law paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. In so doing the Article draws upon key corporate law theories and …

Testing The Normative Desirability Of The Mediating Hierarch, Zachary J. Gubler

Seattle University Law Review

In their influential article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, Professors Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout explained how corporate law might be viewed as an attempt at solving what is known as the team production problem. At its core, this problem has to do with the opportunistic behavior that arises when multiple economic actors make investments—whether of labor, capital, or otherwise—in a business venture where these investments are said to be “firm specific” because they cannot be easily withdrawn and redeployed in other projects. The problem is how to construct a governance regime that will create incentives for the …

Team Production & The Multinational Enterprise, Virginia Harper Ho

Seattle University Law Review

Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s path-breaking article, A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law, advances a dual thesis: first, that team production theory does a better job than its competitors (in particular, principal–agent theory) of explaining the advantages of the public corporation and key features of corporate law; and second, that, as a matter of corporate law, corporate boards are charged with advancing the collective interest of all the contributors to the corporate enterprise rather than the shareholders’ interests alone. Its central insight is that the role of the independent, or insulated, corporate board is to serve as a “mediating …

Hostile Takeovers And Overreliance, Anthony Niblett

Seattle University Law Review

Commentators have argued that employees should be compensated in the event of a hostile takeover; otherwise, the threat of such a takeover will fail to incentivize firm-specific investments by employees. Such deferred compensation is analogous to the payment of damages following a breach of contract. The analogous breach, here, is the breach of an implicit contract between management and employees. Employees trusted management to compensate them for firm-specific investments not explicitly contracted for. This Article uses a familiar result from the contract law literature: There is no measure of damages for breach of contract that can generate both efficient breach …