Securities Law Commons^™

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

Corporate Governance And Gender Equality: A Study Of Comply-Or-Explain Disclosure Regulation, Aaron A. Dhir, Sarah Kaplan, Maria Arabella Robles

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Nasdaq Stock Market filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeking permission to adopt a board diversity-related disclosure requirement for its listed companies. In 2021, the SEC approved the proposal, thus entrenching Nasdaq’s position as the most significant stock exchange to date to mandate listing rules that reflect the intention of diversifying corporate boardrooms. Nasdaq’s movement into the diversity space is not the first attempt to address homogeneous boards in the U.S. In 2009, the SEC adopted a rule requiring publicly traded firms to report on whether they consider diversity in identifying director nominees. …

Judicial Ethics And The Eradication Of Racism, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Washington Supreme Court entrusted the legal community with working to eradicate racism from its legal system. Soon after, Washington’s Commission on Judicial Conduct (hereinafter the Commission) received a complaint about a bus ad for North Seattle College featuring King County Superior Court Judge David Keenan. Along with a photo of Judge Keenan’s face, the ad included the following language: “A Superior Court Judge, David Keenan got into law in part to advocate for marginalized communities. David’s changing the world. He started at North.” The Commission admonished Judge Keenan for violating the Code of Judicial Conduct, in part …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Why Corporate Boards Should Include Lgbtq+ People, Jeremy Mcclane, Darren Rosenblum

Seattle University Law Review

Corporate boardrooms sit at the heart of most of society’s most consequential decisions but fall far short of the diversity of our society. The current movement toward board diversification aims to remedy the underrepresentation of marginalized groups on corporate boards. More recently, some efforts have included LGBTQ+ people, even though the basis for their inclusion on corporate boards remains largely unstated. This Article examines both the normative and instrumental bases for LGBTQ+ inclusion in board diversity initiatives, articulating unspoken assumptions and linking LGBTQ+ people to the broader inclusion effort. In so doing, it begins to surface the unique issues LGBTQ+ …

How Fintech Cos. May Transform Real Estate Investment, Joseph Bizub, Justin Peralta, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Until relatively recently, real estate with a small footprint — one-to-four-family homes as well as small retail, office and industrial buildings — were generally within the sole purview of small investors who invested locally.

Today, because of technological advances, these owner-occupants and investors face significant competition from institutional investors and an emerging class of decentralized finance investors.

These fintech companies are bringing new approaches to the challenges that real estate investing traditionally poses: illiquidity, lack of capital, lack of diversification and uneven access to market information.

This article focuses on how decentralized finance investors in particular are meeting those challenges …

Session 4: Plunging Into Deep Water: An Immersion In Fintech, Defi (Decentralized Finance), & Web3, Joseph M. Vincent

SITIE Symposiums

This panel featured entrepreneurs providing their expert insight into the background, workings, and expected developments of the FinTech industry. Moderated by Adjunct Professor of Law Joseph M. Vincent, the panel features Ron Oliveira, Kory Hoang, and Jonathan Blanco.

The panelists provided insight on topics regarding: (1) the fundamental changes in financial services since the advent of FinTech; (2) background on the Stablecoin industry including a background of what Stablecoin is, and why it has been under recent scrutiny; and (3) the NFT market and the direction the NFT space is heading. In a Q&A session, the panelists also offered their …

Session 3: Deep Innovation Dive In Health Equity: Truveta (“Saving Lives With Data”), Steve Tapia, Dave Heiner

SITIE Symposiums

This session is a “deep dive” into health equity and research via a moderated discussion with Truveta, a new data partnership company poised for research breakthroughs in the healthcare sector. In it, Dave Heiner, General Counsel and Chief Policy Officer for Truveta, discusses the company’s healthcare-centered mission and the key role that data plays in the healthcare field.

Session 2: Diversity Perspectives: In-House Counsel, Debbie Akhbari

SITIE Symposiums

This expert panel addressed diversity perspectives in the legal field. Moderated by Debbie Akhbari, six panelists shared their stories. The panelists were Leticia Hernández, Bernadette Lopez, Elida Moran, Catherine Romero, Rachel Seals, and Katina Thornock. Each panelist's stories have been broken into its own section in the summary of proceedings.

Many diverse candidates have incorrect assumptions made about them, resulting in doors being closed by those in positions of power. This panel shared their personal stories and encouraged students and newer attorneys to keep “knocking on those doors” and for those in positions of power to open those doors. Through …

Session 1: Innovation In Legal Services, Steven W. Bender, Michael Cherry, Matthew Spencer

SITIE Symposiums

This panel featured two “disrupters” who detailed their experiences innovating in the legal services space. The first panelist spoke about data-driven regulatory reform and the other spoke as an entrepreneur whose product introduces artificial intelligence (AI) into the legal recruiting process. Two additional panelists provided commentary regarding the second panelist’s presentation.

The panel provided insight on the topics of: (1) the legal regulatory process at large; (2) how a data-driven and feedback-oriented sandbox provides an alternative regulatory process; (3) the legal hiring and recruiting process and (4) how AI allows law firms to consider alternative hiring metrics when assessing candidates …

Introduction To The 5th Annual Innovation And Technology Law Conference, Annette Clark

SITIE Symposiums

Seattle University School of Law’s then dean, now Dean Emerita, Annette Clark, opens the 5^th annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference, co-sponsored by the Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, and Innovation Law (SJTEIL) at Seattle University School of Law. Annette Clark has been involved with the planning and organization of the Innovation and Technology Law Conference since the conference’s inception. The theme of the 5^th annual 2022 conference is “deep innovation dives.”

Annette Clark explains that “This conference is part of our continuing efforts at Seattle [University] Law to expand educational opportunities for our students and community in …

5th Annual Innovation And Technology Law Conference: Deep Innovation Dives, Steven W. Bender

SITIE Symposiums

Steven W. Bender, Seattle University School of Law Professor and organizer of the SITIE Symposium series, details the history of the SITIE symposiums and the 2022 proceedings. He discusses how this year's symposium builds on themes and issues raised in previous symposiums and looks ahead to the 2023 SITIE symposium.

Federally Mandated Online Sales Tax: A Logistical Solution For The Future Of E-Commerce, Daniel O'Connor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Structural Transformation And Litigation: Evidence From Chinese Provinces, To Economic Change And Restructuring, Doug Bujakowski, Joan Schmit

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Business Interruption" Insurance Coverage Conundrum: Covid-19 Presents A Challenge, Paul E. Traynor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Misalighned Incentives In Markets: Envisioning Finance That Benefits All Of Society, Dr. Ryan Clements

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Monsanto: Creator Of Cancer Liability

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Corporate Response To Controversial Presidential Statements Or Policies

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Seattle University Law Review

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Session 3: Access To Financial Services - The Promise (And Challenges) Of Fintech, Joseph M. Vincent, Chris Adams, Lucinda Fazio, Roberta Hollinshead, Sumit Mallick, Sands Mckinley, Jonice Gray Tucker, Tonita Webb

SITIE Symposiums

For many Americans, the American Dream is a dream deferred. Recently, there has been an explosion in demand for diversity, equity, and inclusion in financial services. This has coincided with an explosion of a different kind related to delivering financial services through innovations in technology, otherwise known as FinTech. We have seen a plethora of FinTech applications on our smartphones, ranging from online lending to remote deposit making. While these applications provide potential opportunities to level the playing field for those whose dream has been deferred, there remain challenges.

Session 1: Access To Legal Services - The Role Of Innovation And Technology, Steven Bender, Stacy Butler, Anna Carpenter, Michael Cherry, Sands Mckinley, Kimball Dean Parker, Miguel Willis

SITIE Symposiums

This expert panel is addressing access to justice problems. People without access to lawyers and legal services suffer in many ways not limited to divorce, domestic violence, and educational roadblocks. This panel will ask what lawyers can do to help, in what ways can technology help or replace lawyers in the delivery of legal and non-legal services. It will also explore different legal services being offered by individuals who do not have a JD, online firms, and developing technology in a law firm owed subsidiary. There are six panelists who are broken into two categories: (1) the innovation and delivery …

Opening Session, Annette Clark, Steven Bender

SITIE Symposiums

This year's conference focuses on the social good, highlighting three access barriers fundamental in law and society - access to legal services (and more generally, justice), access to health and health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and access to financial services for the unbanked or underbanked.

Qualified Opportunity Funds: Private Equity Exemptions From Public Responsibility, Audrey E. Abate

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), passed and signed into law in 2017, included a pilot program of a new kind of tax advantage: the Qualified Opportunity Zone. The obscure provision has since spawned novel investment vehicles, called Qualified Opportunity Funds, through which qualified individuals and entities participate in what are often significant tax advantages, including deferral of capital gains for up to ten years. Because Qualified Opportunity Funds have come into existence so recently, regulation has been slow to catch up to the ways in which this tax program is rapidly attracting capital from private equity, investment …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents and Special Thanks.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) will add a new dispute settlement system to the plethora of judicial mechanisms designed to resolve trade disputes in Africa. Against the discontent of Member States and limited impact the existing highly legalized trade dispute settlement mechanisms have had on regional economic integration in Africa, this paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of the AfCFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM). In particular, the paper situates the AfCFTA-DSM in the overall discontent and unsupportive practices of African States with highly legalized dispute settlement systems and similar WTO-Styled DSMs among other shortcomings. Notwithstanding the transplantation of …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Missing The Role Of Property In The Regulation Of Insider Trading, Kevin R. Douglas

Catholic University Law Review

For decades, legal scholars have evaluated the law and practice of insider trading through a property lens. Some have debated whether a property rationale is useful for explaining past cases or might make a useful framework for deciding tough cases in the future. Others have explored which market actors should be allocated property rights in inside information in order to increase the efficiency or liquidity of U.S. securities markets. Yet scholars seem to have missed the fact that officials have consistently relied on the violation of some party’s property rights to justify imposing liability for insider trading—including in classical theory …