Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Private Wealth And Public Goods: A Case For A National Investment Authority, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States.

Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA …

Insuring Sustainable Homeownership, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Federal Housing Administration has been a versatile tool of government since its creation during the Great Depression. It was created in large part to inject liquidity into a moribund mortgage market. It has since been repositioned to achieve a variety of additional social goals, some of which have not been realized. The FHA’s failed programs, coupled with the recent financial woes of the FHA that resulted in a government bailout, have fueled criticism of the institution. The FHA has been more successful, however, in achieving its broader goals than is generally recognized. Nonetheless, its mission still needs clarification and …

Acts Of Financial Distress In The Eu: Is The Eu To Blame?, Venetia Argyropoulou

Washington International Law Journal

This Article seeks to determine if there is a legal basis for European Union (“EU”) Institutions to be held accountable for measures taken by an EU Member State in cases of financial distress. The Article begins by exploring the concept of sovereignty and then evaluates the limitations placed on state sovereignty by participation in the EU. Next, it explores the definitions of economic coercion and countermeasures and considers whether the actions taken by EU institutions in the context of the Cyprus banking haircut would satisfy either of these definitions. Lastly, this Article studies whether EU law can provide a basis …

Hls 200: A Latina's Story About The Bicentennial, Margaret E. Montoya

Faculty Scholarship

This essay sketches an arc from my childhood to being an Harvard Law School student to my academic work and professional commitments as a law professor and an alumna of Harvard Law School, working to increase access and success in the legal and medical professions for students and faculty of color. I compare aspects of legal and medical education using demographic data as well as some observations about how diverse faculty have transformed the two professions in their respective approaches to and rationales for diversifying the professions and examine the work being done by diverse faculty in law and health. …

The European Aspects Of Global Financial Developments, Virag Ilona Blazsek

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

What is the position of Europe—and specifically the European Union (EU)—on the world map of global finances in 2017? This comment seeks to answer this question by focusing on three key issues. First, it analyzes Europe’s post-2008 bank bailouts, its sector-wide rescue packages, and its consequential sovereign-debt crisis. Second, it considers the role of the international credit rating agencies and asks why Europe does not have a large rating agency of its own. Third, it assesses the EU’s major recent regulatory developments related to the financial sector. There is no doubt that Europe is in a sustained economic and political …

Convergence And Divergence Between International Investments Law And Human Rights Law, In The Context Of The Greek Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Venetia Argyropoulou

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

International investment law developed separately from and was, for a long period, perceived as incompatible with human rights law. Despite the tendency to distinguish the evolution of these two fields of international law, however, they are not completely dissimilar. Inter alia, they both aim to safeguard investors’ rights to property, to promote respect for due process, and to address the undisputed position of power of the state against the individual. In situations of sovereign default, the asymmetry between the powers of the state and the rights of investors is even more clearly demonstrated, even within the European Union. Indeed, although …

Fintech's Double Edges, Christopher G. Bradley

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This symposium essay examines the double-edged nature of financial technologies in financial transactions, especially transactions involving consumers. There are both benefits and risks—often undiscovered or hidden at first—in each new round of financial technologies. A FinTech tool may benefit consumers and then, applied later or in a different context, threaten consumer interests; a tool that harms consumer interests may then lead to development of a tool that favors them. This double-edged nature is an important but unappreciated structural feature of financial technologies. From the perspective of consumer protection, then, FinTech can neither be fully embraced as friend nor restricted as …

The Rise Of Automated Investment Advice: Can Robo-Advisors Rescue The Retail Market?, Benjamin P. Edwards

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Different types of financial advisers serve the massive and widely dispersed retail investment market. In a market riddled with conflicts of interests, many advisers exploit retail customers by pitching suboptimal products, leading to lower investment returns and lower overall growth—but also to greater profits for the financial advisers collecting kickback-style commissions. New financial technology firms, commonly known as Robo-Advisers, may disrupt this market and these exploitative practices. Still, these potentially disruptive automated investment advice firms face significant regulatory risks.

Computer As Confidant: Digital Investment Advice And The Fiduciary Standard, Nicole G. Iannarone

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Digital investment advisers are the fastest growing segment of financial technology (fintech) and are disrupting traditional investment advisory delivery models. The computer-led investment advisory service model may be growing particularly quickly due to a confluence of social and political factors. Politicians and regulators have increasingly focused on the standards of care applicable to investment advice providers. Fewer Americans are ready for retirement and many lack access to affordable investment advice. At the same time, comfort with digital platforms have increased, with some preferring electronic interaction over human interaction. Claiming that they can democratize retirement service by pro- viding advice meeting …

Regtech, Compliance And Technology Judgement Rule, Nizan Geslevich Packin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article focuses on the rise of Financial Technology, which revolutionized consumer financial service products, and challenged policymakers with regulating the rapidly evolving financial industry. In particular, it explores Regulatory Technology, also known as RegTech, which is the finance industry’s use of technology, especially information technology, in the context of regulatory monitoring, reporting and compliance. RegTech is designed to solve industry needs for a more effective and efficient way to automate corporate governance and compliance processes. Not only has FinTech proven to be a vital revenue source, especially in connection with lending or money transmission services, but it also helps …

Fintech: Antidote To Rent-Seeking?, Jeremy Kidd J.D., Ph.D

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Innovations in financial technology, or Fintech, has been ongoing for decades but has recently begun to accelerate. Some observers have argued that it will soon begin to outstrip the ability of regulators to keep pace. If those predictions are accurate, what would the world look like with a financial sector that cannot be effectively regulated? One possibility—drawn from public choice economics—is that rent-seeking will be inhibited or eliminated. Rent-seeking is the distortion of law and regulation for the benefit of special interests, who expend resources to guarantee those distortions in their favor. Rent-seeking is inefficient and inhibits growth and innovation, …

New Art For The People: Art Funds & Financial Technology, Brian L. Frye

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Fine art sales have reached record levels, with the global art market achieving annual sales of over $60 billion. However, the art market is extremely risky and the most lucrative investment opportunities are typically at the high end of the market. In recent years, financial industry professionals with an interest in the art world have increasingly formed art investment funds, intended to enable smaller investors to take advantage of the opportunity to invest in the art world and diversify their portfolios. Some art funds also allow art investors to borrow against certain assets. About 45 art investment funds currently exist, …

The Promise And Perils Of Algorithmic Lenders’ Use Of Big Data, Matthew Adam Bruckner

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Tens of millions of Americans lack access to traditional forms of credit and must rely on payday and pawn loans instead. “Algorithmic lending 2.0” promises to enable fintech companies to lend to those excluded from traditional forms of credit. Version 2.0 algorithmic lenders claim to use Big Data and machine learning to increase credit access by making better predictions about prospective borrowers’ creditworthiness and decreasing the cost of credit. Supporters also claim that algorithmic lending 2.0 removes human bias from the financial services sector. Detractors have cast doubt on both claims, arguing that there is scant evidence that algorithmic lending …

Time Bandits: The Seventh Circuit Gets It Wrong By Allowing Debt Purchasers To Escape Fdcpa Liability For Filing Time-Barred Proofs Of Claim In Chapter 13 Bankruptcies, Jeffrey Michalik

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Debt purchasers can use debtors’ bankruptcies to profit from stale, otherwise unenforceable debt. Although state statutes of limitations bar legal enforcement of this debt, predictable breakdowns of the bankruptcy process mean that the debtor might be forced to pay anyway. Courts have determined that this scheme does not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, allowing debt purchasers to continue this scheme without repercussion.

Conference Program

Journal of International Business and Law Symposia

No abstract provided.

Rise Of The Machines: The Legal Implications For Investor Protection With The Rise Of Robo-Advisors, Bret E. Strzelczyk

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

This note examines the complex state of financial innovation and preexisting investor protection regimes, mainly the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which do not properly address the question of whether a robo-advisor platform serving as registered investment advisers satisfies the fiduciary standard elements laid out in the Act. This article examines the current regulation from the Department of Labor, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and addresses the inadequacies in each regulatory entity’s policy prescription. This article contends that robo-advisors can not act as a fiduciary for several reasons – primarily because these platforms do …

Over- And Under-Funding: Crowdfunding Concerns Of The Parties Involved, Tanya M. Marcum J.D., Eden S. Blair Phd

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

Financial collaboration for new business ventures or the expansion of existing businesses utilizing the internet and social media is expanding. One area of growth is in the area of crowdfunding. Crowdfunding or crowdsourcing is known as collaborative funding using the internet to attract many investors to a new business venture.

In Memoriam: Alfred Pershing (A.P.) Carlton, Jr., North Carolina Banking Institute

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

The Case For A Federal Regulatory Sandbox For Fintech Companies, Luke G. Thomas

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Regulating Complacency: Human Limitations And Legal Efficacy, Steven L. Schwarcz

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article examines how insights into limited human rationality can improve financial regulation. The Article identifies four categories of limitations—herd behavior, cognitive biases, overreliance on heuristics, and a proclivity to panic—that undermine the perfect-market regulatory assumptions that parties have full information and will act in their rational self-interest. The Article then analyzes how insights into these limitations can be used to correct resulting market failures. Requiring more robust disclosure and due diligence, for example, can help to reduce reliance on misleading information cascades that motivate herd behavior. Debiasing through law, such as requiring more specific, poignant, and concrete disclosure of …

Counselor At Law And Post-Legal Issues, David G. Leitch

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Fundamental Banking Policy Problem Of Runs: Effectively Subordinating Large Amounts Of Long-Term Debt To Short-Term Debt To End "Too-Big-To-Fail", John C. Dugan

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Toward A Coherent And Consistent Framework For Treatment Of Confidential Supervisory Information, Clifford S. Stanford

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Expression Yourself: An Analysis Of The Interaction Between The Durbin Amendment And New York Surcharge Ban Of The New York General Business Law, Peter J. Cline

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Hedging With "Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction": Cleaning Up The Fallout Of Treating All Derivative Transactions Between Bank Affiliates The Same, Patrick D. Morris

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Contents, North Carolina Banking Institute

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

A Snake Eating Its Own Tail: The Self-Defeating Nature Of An Overly Broad Implementation Of Section 1071, Stephen Michael Spivey

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Is It A Violation Of The Equal Credit Opportunity Act To Require A Spouse To Guarantee A Loan? If Not, It Should Be, Katherine S. Clarke

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Populist Conundrum: Big Banks Or Plaintiffs' Bar? Banks Win As Congress Overrides The Cfpb Rule Banning Class Action Waivers In Arbitration Agreements, Rebecca D. Floyd

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.

Tying Fiduciary Duties To Student Loans: One Small Step Out Of The Massive Debt, Sean R. Whelehan

North Carolina Banking Institute

No abstract provided.