Commercial Law Commons^™

Flawed Assumptions: A Corporate Law Analysis Of Free Speech And Corporate Personhood In Citizens United, Anne M. Tucker

Faculty Publications By Year

In the wake of the January, 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, special interest groups, citizens, and politicians alike have engaged in a rigorous debate about the role of corporate speech within our democratic process. The First Amendment issues raised in Citizens United - to that extent do corporations have a constitutionally protected right to participate in and influence our elections through expenditures - evoke larger questions about the roles, rights, and responsibilities of corporations within our society. This article concludes that the Supreme Court did not reference corporate law principles when analyzing the fundamental First Amendment debate in …

Defining Civil Disputes: Lessons From Two Jurisdictions, Elizabeth Thornburg, Camille Cameron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Court systems have adopted a variety of mechanisms to narrow the issues in dispute and expedite litigation. This article analyses the largely unsuccessful attempts in two jurisdictions - the United States and Australia - to achieve early and efficient issue identification in civil disputes. Procedures that rely on pleadings to provide focus have failed for centuries, from the common (English) origins of these two systems to their divergent modern paths. Case management practices that are developing in the United States and Australia offer greater promise in the continuing quest for early, efficient dispute definition. Based on a historical and contemporary …

Construction Defects: Are They “Occurrences”?, Chris French

Faculty Scholarship

An issue in the area of insurance law that has been litigated frequently in recent years is whether construction defects are “occurrences” under Commercial General Liability (“CGL”) insurance policies. The courts have been divided in deciding the issue and in their approaches to analyzing the issue. This article addresses how the issue should be analyzed and concludes that construction defects are “occurrences”. The relevant rules of insurance policy interpretation dictate that construction defects are “occurrences”. Policy language should be interpreted in such a way as to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the policyholder when the policy is construed as a …

Somebody's Watching Me: Fcpa Monitorships And How They Can Work Better, F. Joseph Warin, Michael S. Diamant, Veronica S. Root

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the rise of the corporate compliance monitor as a condition for settling violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) — a setting in which federal prosecutors routinely impose monitors. If U.S. enforcement authorities maintain their current approach, the reality is that companies facing liability for violating the FCPA are likely to have a monitor imposed on them as part of a settlement agreement. From the U.S. government’s perspective, monitorships make sense for companies that violate anti-bribery laws, making it important for offending corporations to learn how to deal with monitors. Pulling from the authors’ extensive …

Giving State Tax Incentives To Corporations: How Much Is Too Much?, Kathleen E. Mcdavid

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

The Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act: What Caused The Financial Crisis And Will Dodd-Frank Succeed In Preventing Future Crises?, Charles W. Murdock

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Commercial Law's Complexity, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

This Article proceeds as follows. Part I briefly surveys prevailing ideas about the social costs of complexity and identifies additional costs that have escaped the attention of earlier commentators. The aim is to demonstrate why reducing the complexity of the commercial law system matters. Part II describes three legislative responses-two already enacted ·and one proposed- representing efforts to mediate the tension between the need for precise regulation and the generation of overly complex rules that often results. Part III provides a closer examination of these legislative responses and demonstrates that, taken together, they create an opportunity for the implementation of …

Mortgage Foreclosures, Mortgage Morality, And Main Street: What’S Really Happening?, Jennifer M. Smith

Journal Publications

The American economy is in the tank. Millions of citizens are without jobs, overwhelmed with credit card debt, and losing their homes. The brighter side is that as a result, America has finally embraced financial reform, and the unstable economy is stabilizing marriages. Nevertheless, the United States remains in the midst of a housing crisis, and the ending remains uncertain.

There has been a media blitz about the housing crisis and Wall Street - corporate interests, but much less about the actual impact of the housing crisis on Main Street - America's working class people and small business owners. This …

What Can We Learn From The 2010 Bp Oil Spill?: Five Important Corporate Law And Life Lessons, Joseph Karl Grant

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Economic Development Incentives And The Legal And Economic Issues Of Open Versus Sealed Bids, Sherry L. Jarrell, J. Neal Robbins, Gary L. Shoesmith, Brendan A. Fox

South Carolina Journal of International Law and Business

No abstract provided.

Collateral Damage: Insecurity Assets In The Rising Virtual Age Of E-Commerce, Steven Chang

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

No abstract provided.

East Meets West: Introducing Sharia Into The Rules Governing International Arbitrations At The Bcdr-Aaa, Elana Levi-Tawil

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

As the size and complexity of international commercial transactions grow, parties to international commercial transactions are increasingly utilizing Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") methods, specifically international commercial arbitration, to resolve the disputes that arise. However, since international commercial players first began to use international commercial arbitration to resolve these disputes, transnational recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has been a major issue. Since 1958, the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the "New York Convention"), an agreement executed by the United Nation's General Assembly, has vastly expanded the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral …

Orphaned Art Consignors: Confusion In The Courts And The Ucc, Michael Madigan

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Recent Amendments To Ucc Article 9: Problems And Solutions, David Frisch

Law Faculty Publications

This article examines three of the forthcoming amendments to Article 9 in some detail: (1) the required name of an individual on a financing statement; (2) the perfection of collateral following the debtor's relocation to a new jurisdiction; and (3) collateral acquired by a new debtor. In the interest of brevity, the discussion of other, less noteworthy, amendments of the statutory text and Official Comments is not as complete. The primary purpose of this article is to off er guidance to legal professionals confronting particular issues under current and future Article 9.

A Former Treasury Adviser On How To Really Fix Wall Street, Morgan Ricks

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Any serious program for Wall Street reform should start with two words: “term out.” “Terming out” is a financial term of art, but its meaning is easily grasped. It simply means funding your business with long-term financing instead of short-term IOUs. To a far greater extent than is commonly understood, our financial sector funds its operations with extremely short-term borrowings. These IOUs must be paid back in a day, a week, or a month. By contrast, termed-out financial firms shun borrowings that come due in less than a year. A terming-out requirement would be costly for Wall Street, but the …

Outsourcing, Modularity, And The Theory Of The Firm, Erin O'Connor, Gregg Kirchhoefer, Margaret M. Blair

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Firms have increasingly moved productive activities from within to outside the firm through outsourcing arrangements. According to some estimates, the value of outsourcing contracts has been nearly 100 billion dollars per year since 2004. Firm outsourcing happens for a number of reasons, including to save labor costs, capture the benefits of regulatory arbitrage, and take advantage of economies of scale in the provision of firm needs. We review a number of outsourcing contracts for evidence that contract techniques are used to help modularize the relationship between the firm and its service provider. Consistent with what modularity theory might predict, some …

Information Wars And The Challenges Of Content Protection In Digital Contexts, Raymond T. Nimmer

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

We are in the midst of a fundamental conflict in law and policy between those who favor maintaining and expanding copyright and related rights in the digital context ("rights enhancers"), and those who favor letting rights atrophy ("rights restrictors'). This Article argues that strong intellectual property rights are essential. At minimum, they are important to support creativity in contexts where the creation, collection, or distribution of the content requires substantial investment of time and resources. The case for allowing creators' rights to weaken is both untested and structurally suspect. Copyright law must construct a balance that fully supports creative activity …

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 …

Market Realities Do Not Embody Necessary Economic Theory: Why Defendants Deserve A Safe Harbor Under Section 2 Of The Sherman Act For Exclusive Dealing, Danielle N. Paschal

Georgia Law Review

Exclusive dealing agreements are a form of vertical
restraint. They are often procompetitive and treated as
presumptively legal. Although claims against
anticompetitive agreements may be pursued under
numerous antitrust laws, claims have been brought more
recently under section 2 of the Sherman Act. Antitrust
laws generally focus on the percentage of foreclosure.
Section 2 of the Sherman Act, though, requires a smaller
percentage of foreclosure of distribution channels than
other antitrust laws. Analysis under section 2 of the
Sherman Act also focuses on the actual effects of the
agreement in the relevant market. Determining the
agreement's actual effects on the …

Rethinking The Laws Of Good Faith Purchase, Alan Schwartz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay is a comparative economic analysis of the disparate doctrines governing the good faith purchase of stolen or misappropriated goods. We argue that prior treatments have misconceived the problem. An owner will take optimal precautions to prevent theft if she is faced with the loss of her goods; and a purchaser will make an optimal investigation into his seller's title if faced with the loss of the goods. An owner and a buyer cannot both be faced with the full loss, however. This presents a problem of "double moral hazard" and it cannot be solved in a first-best efficient …

Agency And Partnership Law [2010], Pearlie Koh, Stephen Bull

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

The Shareholder’S Personal Claim: Allowing Recovery For Reflective Loss, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

An absolute application of the no reflective loss principle can result in unfairness. As such, retaining judicial discretion in the area will do much to ensure that genuine causes are not denied remedy. However, even as our courts appear prepared to allow a shareholder to recover for reflective loss, it is important that corporate autonomy is accorded due respect, and not be obscured by an overconsideration of policy concerns. To ensure this, the courts should allow recovery only if the right asserted by the shareholder is one that is separate and independent of the company’s right.

Advertising Law And Regulation, Chao-Hung Christopher Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

Advertising Law And Regulation By Giles Crown, Oliver Bray And Rupert Earle [Book Review], Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

"Competence-Competence And Separability-American Style", Published As Chapter 8 In International Arbitration And International Commercial Law: Synergy, Convergence And Evolution, Jack M. Graves, Yelena Davydan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Late Delivery--Measure Of Damages, Sidney Kwestel

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Mediation Representation: Representing Clients Anywhere, Harold Abramson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Redesigning Global Trade Institutions, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

This is a draft of an essay for the symposium, 2021: International Law Ten Years from Now, held by the Southwestern Journal of International Law in cooperation with the International Law Association (American Branch) Weekend West. The essay deals with two questions. First, what is to be of the WTO and world trade institutions generally? It examines the rise of regionalism in international trade agreements and possible roles for variable geometry for the WTO. The essay critiques proposals to move towards (or back to) plurilateralism for the WTO. Second, what should trade agreements do? This question goes to the core …

The Limited Case For Permitting Sme Procurement Preferences In The Wto Agreement On Government Procurement, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

This is a chapter in the book, Sue Arrowsmith & Robert D. Anderson, The WTO Regime on Government Procurement: Challenge and Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2011). The chapter puts under scrutiny public procurement policies designed to benefit SMEs per se, as small or medium sized enterprises, and to evaluate whether the GPA (and hence possibly other trade agreements liberalizing procurement markets) should be more accommodating to these policies, even though these policies might restrict international trade. The chapter also evaluates whether the GPA should be more accommodating to policies designed to benefit firms controlled by individuals who belong to historically …