Commercial Law Commons^™

Validating Valuation: How Statistical Learning Can Cabin Expert Discretion In Valuation Disputes, Andrew C. Baker, Jonah B. Gelbach, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This article challenges conventional methods used in financial valuation across transactional and litigation domains. We show that conventional valuation methods allow for considerable discretion, making it possible for each side’s experts to submit dramatically varying valuations simply by choosing among facially reasonable values of parameters that must be selected to carry out conventional valuations. We use large-scale empirical simulations powered by real-world data to demonstrate the scope of such discretion. We next consider several alternatives based on data-driven machine learning approaches, and show that they offer both approximately unbiased estimates of valuation and substantially reduced variability in valuation results. Consequently, …

The Law On Deposits In Singapore, Tiong Min Yeo

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

This article traces the development of the law of deposits in Singapore and reviews the restatement of the law in the 2024 landmark decision of the Court of Appeal in Li Jialin v Wingcrown Investments Pte Ltd, as well as some of the issues left open by the decision. It is argued that while the decision has clarified that deposits are not subject to the penalty rule but instead subject to the common law test of reasonableness—with the practical consequence that, with clear drafting, contracting parties can rely on the validity of reasonable deposit clauses without the complication of …

Racial Discrimination In Retailers' Willingness To Accept Returns: A Field Study, Meirav Furth-Matzkin

Northwestern University Law Review

Black Americans have long faced discriminatory treatment while shopping in retail establishments, including, most notably, being subjected to increased surveillance, inconsistent pricing, and inferior customer service. Little attention, however, has been paid to other post-purchase aspects of retail transactions. Specifically, do Black Americans receive the same treatment as white customers when it comes to performing sellers’ formal policies or contracts? While it is understood that salespeople are often given discretion to deviate from standard form contracts, sometimes departing from the literal terms to satisfy consumers, there has been a notable absence of systematic exploration into how salespeople exercise this authority …

A Call For Clarity In Contractual Accessions To Shareholder And Partnership Agreements, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper explores understudied issues surrounding accessions to shareholder and partnership agreements: the process by which such accessions take effect; the survival of equities following an accession; and the enforcement of a condition for incoming shareholders to have to execute and deliver a deed of accession. Accessions happen extremely often in modern commercial life, which renders surprising the dearth of academic and judicial discussion, but more disconcerting is the unsettledness of some of the complex issues implicated. The repurposing of unilateral contracts to explain how deeds of accession operate is not fully tested in English law; the conception of partial …

Towards The Faa's Next Century: Clarifying Disclosure Requirements In Arbitration, Andrea K. Schneider, Brian Farkas

American University Business Law Review

In the summer of 2024, all eyes were on Paris. Thousands of athletes from over 200 countries competed in over 300 sports. The Olympics is nationalism at its healthiest: cheering for one's own nation, while recognizing the fundamentally transnational human values of pluralism, diversity, and aspiration.

Facilitating Trust Arbitration By Amending The Federal Arbitration Act, S. I. Strong

American University Business Law Review

Over the last few years, a new dispute resolution procedure has burst onto the domestic and international stage: trust arbitration, which allows an arbitration provision located in a trust to trigger arbitration of "internal" trust disputes arising either between trust beneficiaries or between beneficiaries and the trustee.

A Reply To David Jones, Dennis M. Patterson

Maine Law Review

During my years of practice in Maine, I had the pleasure of litigating most of the issues discussed in my book, Maine Debtor-Creditor Law, with many members of Maine's fine commercial and bankruptcy law bar. Among the lawyers with whom I litigated these questions is David Jones. In fact, one of the cases we litigated, a particularly thorny foreclosure action, was the impetus of an article that became portions of two of the chapters in my book. It is against this background that I was pleased to learn that one of my old adversaries from practice had agreed to review …

Modular Bankruptcy: Toward A Consumer Scheme Of Arrangement, John A.E. Pottow

Articles

In the world of cross-border corporate insolvency, those in the know are familiar with the increasingly popular scheme of arrangement, the British quasi-reorganization procedure that allows a company to restructure some, but not all, of its debt. The typical scheme effects a corporate balance sheet reshuffling by supermajoritarian approval (and judicial "sanction") but often leaves other debt, such as the trade, untouched. A key conceptual component of the scheme mechanism is its intentional modularity, called by some its "selectivity." It does not require a comprehensive reckoning of all claims against a given debtor, only some. The scheme has proved popular-so …

Silence As Consumer Consent: Global Regulation Of Negative Option Contracts, Kaitlin Caruso, Prentiss Cox

American University Law Review

Worldwide, the “subscription economy” has exploded in recent years, especially among online sellers of consumer goods and services. Although these subscriptions use various contract forms, many have one common feature: the negative option. With a negative option contract, once a consumer has signed up, the contract will continue until the consumer actively reaches out to cancel it. These are wildly popular among sellers, as they create continuous income and put inertia on the sellers’ side. Unsurprisingly, then, consumers complain in great numbers about being trapped in agreements that are easy to sign up for but seemingly impossible to cancel. Even …

The Empty Space In The Teaching Of Commercial Law: An Argument For Including Article 7 Of The Ucc In The Commercial Law Curriculum, Glenys Spence

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law

No abstract provided.

More Than Friends: A New Theory For The Third-Party Doctrine, Eang L. Ngov

American University Law Review

When a person gives information or something tangible to someone or a business, the Fourth Amendment’s third-party doctrine allows the government to obtain that evidence without a warrant or probable cause. The third-party doctrine is premised on the rationale that we hold no reasonable expectation of privacy when we voluntarily expose information to others, that we assume the risk that the third party would share the information, and that we must deal with the consequences of that misplaced trust. The doctrine originated from a series of cases where law enforcement obtained information revealed by criminals through their mistaken trust of …

Ucc § 2-510: A Commercial Law Blunder?, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

Commercial law, as codified by the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC"), recognizes certain important policy goals and commercial realities as a basis to override property law. Among other provisions, § 2-509 of the UCC allocates the risk of loss to goods in transit to the party who controls and would be expected to insure the goods, whether or not that party owns the goods at the time of their loss. Promoting commercial reality over the "arbitrary shifting" of rights based on property has been widely praised. Shortly after that risk-of-loss provision was enacted, however, it was modified by an additional UCC …

Emerging Technology's Unfamiliarity With Commercial Law, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Over the course of a three-year, collaborative process that was open to the public, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) and the American Law Institute (ALI) undertook a project to revise the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) to account for the impact of emerging technologies on commercial transactions. The amendments, approved jointly by the ULC and ALI in July 2022, touch on aspects of the entire UCC, but one change has inspired ire and attracted national media attention: a proposed revision to the definition of “money.” The 2022 UCC Amendments alter the definition of “money” to account for the introduction of central …

Strict Liability For Defective Products Sold On Amazon's E-Marketplace: Is The Tide Turning?, John R. Dorogak, Ann Johnson, Thomas Mcweeny, Breena Coates, Montgomery Van Wart

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Commercial Law’S Uncertain Boundaries, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

Although it is an essential part of business law, commercial law has uncertain boundaries. That uncertainty creates significant legal ambiguities and inconsistencies, confusing lawyers and courts and causing misinterpretations that disrupt commerce and reduce efficiency. This Article hypothesizes and tests possible explanations for the uncertainty, including that commercial law’s development has been path dependent, ad hoc, and lacking well-defined normative purposes. The Article then analyzes what those boundaries should be, arguing that commercial law should cover all business-related transfers of property, subject to exceptions needed to reduce transaction costs and otherwise increase economic efficiency. The Article also compares its proposed …

Innovation Misunderstood, Maurice E. Stucke, Ariel Ezrachi

American University Law Review

Innovation is transformative and key to future prosperity. It is therefore of no surprise that antitrust laws seek to promote it. What is surprising, however, is that despite the central role that innovation occupies in competition cases, its actual treatment by the courts is far from nuanced. In this paper, we reflect on the D.C. Circuit’s 2023 ruling in New York v. Meta to illustrate the prevailing monocular vision adopted by the court in its treatment of innovation. That vision, we argue, reflects simplistic assumptions as to innovation dynamics and mistaken beliefs about the digital economy. It is further compounded …

After Ftx: Can The Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, Mark Burge

Faculty Scholarship

Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies spawned by the innovation of blockchain programming have exploded in prominence, both in gains of massive market value and in dramatic market losses, the latter most notably seen in connection with the failure of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in November 2022. After years of investment and speculation, however, something crucial has faded: the original use case for Bitcoin as a system of payment. Can cryptocurrency-as-a-payment-system be saved, or are day traders and speculators the actual cryptocurrency future? This article suggests that cryptocurrency has been hobbled by a lack of foundational commercial and consumer-protection law that …

Coordination Of The Uniform Commercial Code And Common Law, Kenneth C. Kettering

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Deciding whether an issue that is in the ambit of a statute should be resolved by reference to the statute alone, or whether other sources of law should be applied, is a common interpretative task. The Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") contains rules of interpretation that address the subject, and those rules have not been altered since the UCC was first generally enacted. Nevertheless, questions often arise on the subject under the UCC. This paper examines the UCC rules on point. The analysis is germane to the interpretation and drafting of other statutes that codify rules of private law.

Modular Bankruptcy: Toward A Consumer Scheme Of Arrangement, John A. E. Pottow

Law & Economics Working Papers

The world of international bankruptcy has seen increasing use of the versatile scheme of arrangement, a form of corporate reorganization available under English law. A key feature of the scheme is its modularity, whereby a debtor can restructure only a single class of debt, such as bond indentures, without affecting other debt, such as trade. This is the opposite of chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code’s comprehensive reckoning of all financial stakeholders. This article considers a novel idea: could the scheme be transplanted into the consumer realm? It argues that it could and should. Substantial benefits of more individually …

Floating Liens Over Crypto-In-Commerce, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Indiana Law Journal

Commercial law and crypto are colliding. Against the backdrop of explosive growth (and discord) in the digital asset market, there has been a series of recent revisions to American commercial law aimed at addressing new and emerging technologies. These changes to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) are designed to facilitate the buying and selling of digital assets as well as their use as collateral. However, to date, the literature exploring these changes has mainly focused on understanding the basics of the new regime. This Essay moves beyond that baseline by showing how the UCC amendments can be used to structure …

Critical Theory & Commercial Law In The Sunshine, Christopher D. Hampson

UF Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, Florida and other states have attempted to expel critical legal theory, critical race theory, and all things “woke” from their institutions of higher education. At a time of professional cautiousness and chilled speech, this Essay aims to bring these ideas into the sunshine. I provide a rough background on critical theory and how it helps make sense of commercial law, including Contracts and Bankruptcy, two courses I teach at the University of Florida. Critical theory can help students learn how to navigate complex systems of laws, analyze the policy implications of legal rules, and represent their future …

Floating Liens Over Crypto-In-Commerce, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Faculty Scholarship

Commercial law and crypto are colliding. Against the backdrop of explosive growth (and discord) in the digital asset market, there has been a series of recent revisions to American commercial law aimed at addressing new and emerging technologies. These changes to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) are designed to facilitate the buying and selling of digital assets as well as their use as collateral. However, to date, the literature exploring these changes has mainly focused on understanding the basics of the new regime. This Essay moves beyond that baseline by showing how the UCC amendments can be used to structure …

The Sour Reality Of Copyright Infringement, Vanessa R. Carreno Alvarez

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Disrupted Path To Becoming Easy, Breezy, Beautiful: How Companies Are Deceiving Consumers With Their Animal Testing Products, Wendy Chao

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Private Law Of Stablecoins, Kara J. Bruce, Christopher K. Odinet, Andrea Tosato

Faculty Scholarship

Stablecoins are one of the cornerstones of the crypto world. They’ve attracted significant attention over the past few years, ranging from Wall Street to kitchen table investors, and even the White House. As a less volatile alternative to crypto-assets like bitcoin, stablecoins have the potential to change the way we make payments, unlock the groundwork needed for more blockchain-based applications, and even reorient the economy toward private money. But how stable are these stablecoins, really? Can they be relied upon in the way their many proponents claim? And how much of the popular beliefs about stablecoins match their realities? That’s …

Regulating Global Stablecoins: A Model-Law Strategy, Steven L. Schwarcz

Vanderbilt Law Review

Digital currencies have the potential to improve the speed and efficiency of the payment system. The principal challenge is retail: to facilitate day-to-day payments among consumers as an alternative to cash, both domestically and across national borders. Two models of digital currencies are becoming viable: central bank digital currencies and nongovernment-issued currencies that are backed by assets having intrinsic value (stablecoins or, when widely used internationally, global stablecoins). Because they are not government issued, global stablecoins present complex and novel cross-border regulatory challenges, including managing the costs of complying with a multitude of national laws and ensuring international legal enforceability. …

Novation And Advance Consent, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Professor Goode once observed that “Novation need not be left to ad hoc agreement; it is open to the parties to provide for it in advance and in particular to establish a contractual mechanism by which novation takes place automatically on the occurrence of a designated act or event”. This deceptively straightforward proposition is examined in the present article. It explores the legal footing for, and the risks in adopting a pristine version of, the proposition, and considers possible safeguards that may be incorporated within the process of scrutiny, if in any case there arises concern over the effectiveness of …

Book Review - Comparative Commercial Contracts: Law, Culture And Economic Development, Second Edition, Benjamin Geva

Articles & Book Chapters

Comparative Commercial Contracts: Law, Culture and Economic Development, Second Edition Boris Kozolchyk (St. Paul, Minnesota: West Academic Publishing, 2019) 1380 + liv pp. US$146

Will Corporations Deliver Value To All Stakeholders?, Lucian A. Bebchuk, Roberto Tallarita

Vanderbilt Law Review

Amid growing concerns for the effects that corporations have on stakeholders, supporters of stakeholder governance advocate relying on corporate leaders to use their discretion to protect stakeholders, and they seem to take corporate pledges to do so at face value. By contrast, critics question whether corporate leaders have incentives to protect stakeholders and to follow through on pledges to do so. We provide empirical evidence that can contribute to resolving the debate between these rival views.

The most celebrated pledge by corporate leaders to protect stakeholders was the Business Roundtable's 2019 Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation (the "BRT …

Contracting For Process, David Snyder

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article introduces the concept of contracting for process and considers when it is likely to be the best contract design. Contracting for process is in widespread use, but it often goes unnoticed. Some characteristics of contracting for process suit it particularly well to situations of uncertainty, including the radical uncertainty that results from fundamental disruptions such as COVID-19. Parties can employ this design for both contracts made or renegotiated during a crisis and for contracts made in ordinary times. The concept articulated here, however, is not confined to contexts of uncertainty or complexity; it can be used to achieve …