Legislation Commons^™

Enforcement Without Foundation? Insider Trading And China's Administrative Law Crisis, Nicholas C. Howson

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China's securities regulator enforces insider trading prohibitions pursuant to non-legal and non-regulatory internal "guidance." Reported agency decisions indicate that enforcement against insider trading is often possible only pursuant to this guidance, as the behavior identified is far outside of the scope of insider trading liability provided for in statute or regulation. I argue that the agency guidance is itself unlawful and unenforceable, because: (i) the guidance is not the regulatory norm required by the statutory delegation of power; and (ii) the guidance is ultra vires because (a) it addresses something substantively different from what is authorized under the statutory delegation, …

The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann

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When I joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 2007, the first assignment I gave students in my Environmental Law and Policy class was John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid. It must have seemed like a curious choice to them, particularly coming from a professor who just three months earlier had been the Chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. The book was not a dramatic tale of courtroom battles. In fact, the book was not even about the law, and the clash of environmental values it depicted pre-dated the environmental …

The Financial Crisis And The Path Of Reform, Michael S. Barr

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In the lead-up to the financial crisis, the U.S. financial sector was overleveraged, short-funded, risky, and opaque. "Shadow banking" permitted institutions to avoid comprehensive supervision and capital requirements. Innovation outpaced the ability or willingness of private- and public-sector guardians to rein in risks. An asset bubble fed the system, until the market imploded in the fall of 2008. When the crisis hit, our society found itself illequipped to deal with the failure of leading financial firms. In the wake of the crisis, the Obama Administration proposed a set of reforms that were eventually embodied, in large part, in the Dodd-Frank …

Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?, J. J. Prescott

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State legislatures enacted sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws with the explicit and exclusive aim of reducing sex offender recidivism. The general idea that we ought to “regulate” released offenders — of any type — to reduce the likelihood of their returning to crime is an attractive one, at least in theory. Criminal recidivism generates significant social harm. Nevertheless, despite their now-widespread use, SORN laws became the norm without any systematic study of their consequences. Admittedly, the logic underlying these laws seems at first difficult to gainsay: if a known sex offender poses even a small risk to a …

When Federal And State Systems Converge: Foreign National Human Trafficking Victims Within Juvenile And Family Courts, Bridgette A. Carr

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This article highlights the concerns facing foreign national children who are both victims of human trafficking and under the jurisdiction of juvenile and family courts. Human trafficking is modern day slavery in which individuals, including children, are compelled into service and exploited. Foreign national human trafficking victims in juvenile and family court systems must navigate both the state system and a complex federal immigration system. This article explains the federal benefits available to these children and identifies the best practice approaches for juvenile and family court systems to increase identification of and support for foreign national child trafficking victims.jfcj_1073

Why I Do Law Reform, Lawrence W. Waggoner

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In this Article, Professor Waggoner, newly retired, provides a retrospective on his career in law reform. He was inspired to write the Article by a number of articles by law professors explaining why they write. He contrasts law-reform work with law-review writing, pointing out that the work product of a law-reform reporter is directed to duly constituted law-making authorities. He notes that before getting into the law-reform business, he had authored or co-authored law review articles that advocated reform, but he also notes that those articles did not move the law a whit. The articles did, however, lead to his …

What A Load Of Hope: The Post-Racial Mixtape, Jeremiah Chin

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This Comment analyzes how Supreme Court decisions and recent legislation have used the language of post-racialism to re-center whiteness through the law. Rather than using explicit racist language, the post-racial project exploits the language of historical antiracist efforts to negate experiences with discrimination while continuing a hostile environment for racial groups and promoting white supremacy in the United States.

Beginning with Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger, and school desegregation in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, this Comment analyzes …

Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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On March 21, 2011, AT&T announced that it will buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion. This transaction will be tax free to Deutsche Telekom (DT) not because it qualifies as a reorganization, but because DT is a foreign corporation and capital gains of nonresidents are generally not subject to U.S. taxation because they are deemed to be foreign source. Also, DT is protected from taxation by article 13(5) of the Germany-U.S. tax treaty, which provides that capital gains are generally taxable only by the country of residence.

But That Is Absurd! Why Specific Absurdity Undermines Textualism, Linda Jellum

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No abstract provided.

Taxation As Regulation: Carbon Tax, Health Care Tax, Bank Tax And Other Regulatory Taxes, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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This paper addresses three questions: 1. Is regulation a legitimate goal for taxation? 2. Which tax is best suited for regulation? 3. Would it be better to allocate just one goal per tax among the major taxes (individual and corporate income tax and VAT)? It then analyzes the proposed bank tax and the enacted health care tax as regulatory taxes, and concludes that the first is desirable (as is a carbon tax) but the second is not.

Child Pornography And Community Notification: How An Attempt To Reduce Crime Can Achieve The Opposite, J. J. Prescott

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Community notification laws, designed to reduce the frequency of sex offenses by alerting potential victims to nearby threats and by encouraging citizen monitoring of potential recidivists, may make sense in the context of traditional sex offenses and sex offenders. But child pornography crimes and the individuals who commit them are different, and they differ from archetypal sex crimes and criminals in ways that may unintentionally cause community notification laws to facilitate crime rather than inhibit it. Child porn offenses typically involve money or trade, and their commission hinges on successfully conspiring with others. Markets and information are necessary building blocks …

Another Word On The President's Statutory Authority Over Agency Action, Nina A. Mendelson

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In this short symposium contribution, I attempt first to add some further evidence on the interpretive question. That evidence weighs strongly, in my view, in favor of Kagan's conclusion that the terminology does not communicate any particular congressional intent regarding presidential directive authority. Assessed in context, the "whole code" textual analysis presented by Stack does not justify the conclusion that Congress, by delegating to an executive branch official, meant to limit presidential control. Independent agencies excluded, interpreting the terms of simple and presidential delegations to speak to directive authority fails, in general, to make sense of the various statutes. Absent …

Examining The Reality Of Foreign National Child Victims Of Human Trafficking In The United States, Bridgette A. Carr

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Human traffickers prey on the vulnerabilities of other people. Poverty, lack of education, and language barriers are keys that human traffickers use to successfully exploit others. For foreign national children who have been trafficked in the United States, these same vulnerabilities are often ignored by the immigration system. From its inception, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) has been touted as a tool to combat grave human rights violations that affect children. In fact, the TVPA's legislative history is rife with stories, statistics, and anecdotes involving children-often young girls. The TVPA has always recognized the failure of a one-size-fits-all approach …

Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow

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The landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 ("Dodd-Frank") transforms the regulation of consumer credit in the United States. Many of its changes have been high-profile, attracting considerable media and scholarly attention, most notably the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). Even specific consumer reforms, such as a so-called "plain vanilla" proposal, drew hot debate and lobbying firepower. But when the dust settled, one profoundly transformative innovation that did not garner the same outrage as plain vanilla or the CFPB did get into the law: imposing upon lenders a duty to assure a borrower's ability to repay. Ensuring a borrower's …

Readers' Copyright, Jessica D. Litman

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My goal in this project is to reclaim copyright for readers (and listeners, viewers, and other members of the audience). I think, and will try to persuade you, that the gradual and relatively recent disappearance of readers’ interests from the core of copyright’s perceived goals has unbalanced the copyright system. It may have prompted, at least in part, the scholarly critique of copyright that has fueled copyright lawyers’ impression that “so many in academia side with the pirates.” It may also be responsible for much of the deterioration in public support for copyright. I argue here that copyright seems out …

Us Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

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In 2009, the UK reconfirmed tis long-standing public policy against perpetual trusts. America has been moving in the opposite direction. Recent years have seen a movement in the states to pass legislation allowing settlors to create family trusts that can last forever or for several centuries. Sadly, and embarrassingly, the American perpetual-trust movement has not been based on the merits of removing the traditional curb on excessive dead-hand control. The policy issues associated with allowing perpetual trusts have not been seriously discussed in the state legislatures. The driving force has been interstate competition for trust business.

After The Spill Is Gone: The Gulf Of Mexico, Environmental Crime, And Criminal Law, David M. Uhlmann

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The Gulf oil spill was the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and will be the most significant criminal case ever prosecuted under U.S. environmental laws. The Justice Department is likely to prosecute BP, Transocean, and Halliburton for criminal violations of the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which will result in the largest fines ever imposed in the United States for any form of corporate crime. The Justice Department also may decide to pursue charges for manslaughter, false statements, and obstruction of justice. The prosecution will shape public perceptions about environmental crime, for reasons that are …

Do Sex Offender Registration And Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?, J. J. Prescott, Jonah E. Rockoff

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Sex offenders have become the targets of some of the most far-reaching and novel crime legislation in the U.S. Two key innovations in recent decades have been registration and notification laws which, respectively, require that convicted sex offenders provide valid contact information to law enforcement authorities, and that information about sex offenders be made public. Using the evolution of state law during the 1990s and 2000s, we study how registration and notification affect the frequency of reported sex offenses and the incidence of such offenses across victims. We find evidence that registration reduces the frequency of sex offenses by providing …

Securities Law In The Roberts Court: Agenda Or Indifference?, Adam C. Pritchard

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To outsiders, securities law is not all that interesting. The body of the law consists of an interconnecting web of statutes and regulations that fit together in ways that are decidedly counter-intuitive. Securities law rivals tax law in its reputation for complexity and dreariness. Worse yet, the subject regulated-capital markets-can be mystifying to those uninitiated in modem finance. Moreover, those markets rapidly evolve, continually increasing their complexity. If you do not understand how the financial markets work, it is hard to understand how securities law affects those markets.

Post-Racial Proxies: Resurgent State And Local Anti-"Alien" Laws And Unity-Rebuilding Frames For Antidiscrimination Values, Mary D. Fan

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Though unauthorized migration into the United States has diminished substantially since 2007, anti-“illegal alien” state and local laws and furor are flaring again. While one of the biggest worries regarding such “anti-alien” laws is the risk of racialized harm, courts invalidating overreaching statutes are relying on structural or procedural grounds, such as preemption and due process doctrines. [PARA] This Article examines how these political and legal trends point to how proxies are used in a post-racial era to dance around race, in constructive, national unity-rebuilding as well as divisive, inflammatory ways. Anti-alien legislation is a proxy way to vent resurgent …

Expression By Ordinance: Preemption And Proxy In Local Legislation, Lindsay Nash

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Local laws based on immigration status have prompted heated national debate on federalism and discrimination. A second strain of nuisance-related legislation has emerged in recent years, which often targets these same immigrant communities. This paper examines the hitherto-unstudied correlation between ordinances explicitly related to immigrants and legislation regarding nuisance–as illuminated through primary research into municipal legislation across the nation. Evaluating these laws and the context of their enactment, this research shows when and how nuisance laws target certain populations. Ultimately, this inquiry reveals troubling parallels to previous community responses to disfavored subgroups and the harm resulting from proxy legislation.

The Case Against Taxing Citizens, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

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The bipartisan tax reform bill recently introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., proposes to abolish IRC section 911. That section, which exempts U.S. citizens living overseas from tax on the first $80,000 of earned income, is indeed anomalous in the context of a tax on all income "from whatever source derived," and has been subjected to criticism. However, there is a reason section 911 has been in the code since the 1920s: In its absence, citizenship-based taxation becomes completely unadministrable. Rather than continuing the long argument over section 911, Congress should therefore reexamine the basic premise: …

It Is Logic Rather Than Whom You Trust: A Rejoinder To Prof. Cohen, Douglas A. Kahn

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This article is the continuation of an exchange that has taken place between Prof. Stephen B. Cohen and me concerning the validity of criticisms leveled by Chief Justice John Roberts on an opinion by then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor writing for the Second Circuit in the case of William L. Rudkin Testamentary Trust v. Commissioner. While affirming the Second Circuit’s decision, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court, criticized and rejected Justice Sotomayor’s construction of the relevant statutory provision. In an article in the August 3, 2009, issue of Tax Notes, Cohen defended Justice Sotomayor’s construction of the statute and …

The Art Of Statutory Interpretation: Identifying The Interpretative Theory Of The Judges Of The United States Court Of Appeals For Veterans' Claims And The United States Court Of Appeals For The Federal Circuit, Linda Jellum

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No abstract provided.

Securities Class Actions Move North: A Doctrinal And Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Actions In Canada, Adam C. Pritchard, Janis P. Sarra

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The article explores securities class actions involving Canadian issuers since the provinces added secondary market class action provisions to their securities legislation. It examines the development of civil liability provisions, and class proceedings legislation and their effect on one another. Through analyses of the substance and framework of the statutory provisions, the article presents an empirical and comparative examination of cases involving Canadian issuers in both Canada and the United States. In addition, it explores how both the availability and pricing of director and officer insurance have been affected by the potential for secondary market class action liability. The article …

Crow Dog Vs. Spotted Tail: Case Closed, Timothy Connors, Vivek Sankaran

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In 1868, Chief Spotted Tail signed a United States government treaty with an X. Spotted Tail was a member of the Brule Sioux Tribe, related by marriage to Crazy Horse. The government treaty recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux reservation. As such, exclusive use of the Black Hills by the Sioux people was guaranteed. Monroe, Michigan, native Gen. George Custer changed all that. In 1874, he led an expedition into that protected land, announced the discovery of gold, and the rush of prospectors followed. Within two years, Custer attacked at Little Big Horn and met his …

Message To Congress: Halt The Tax Exemption For Perpetual Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

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The federal estate tax is in abeyance this year. The popular press has picked up on the possibility that the estates of billionaires such as the late George Steinbrenner, who owned the New York Yankees, will escape the tax. The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, and the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, are now considering two questions: what the maximum rate and exemption will be when the estate tax returns and whether the tax will be reinstated for this year. Lurking behind the headlines but equally important is …

Implementing The Standby Letter For Credit Convention With The Law Of Wyoming, James J. White

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For the first time in American practice, we propose to implement a convention by a federal adoption of law previously enacted by the states – from Wyoming to New York – to implement the Convention on Independent Guarantees and Standby Letters of Credit (“Convention”).1

Corporate Law In The Shanghai People's Courts, 1992-2008: Judicial Autonomy In A Contemporary Authoritarian State, Nicholas C. Howson

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In late 2005 China adopted a largely rewritten Company Law that radically increased the role of courts. This study, based on a review of more than 1000 Company Law-related disputes reported between 1992 and 2008 and extensive interactions with PRC officials and sitting judges, evaluates how the Shanghai People's Court system has fared over 15 years in corporate law adjudication. Although the Shanghai People's Courts show generally increasing technical competence and even intimations of political independence, their path toward institutional autonomy is inconsistent. Through 2006, the Shanghai Court system demonstrated significantly increased autonomy. After 2006 and enactment of the new …

Litigation Strategies For Dealing With The Indigent Defense Crisis, Eve Brensike Primus

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The indigent defense delivery system in the United States is in a state of crisis. Public defenders routinely handle well over 1,000 cases a year, more than three times the number of cases that the American Bar Association says one attorney can handle effectively. As a result, many defendants sit in jail for months before even speaking to their court-appointed lawyers. And when defendants do meet their attorneys, they are often disappointed to learn that these lawyers are too overwhelmed to provide adequate representation. With public defenders or assigned counsel representing more than 80% of criminal defendants nationwide, the indigent …