Securities Law Commons^™

When Tokenized Real-World Assets Collide With Real World, Biying Cheng, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The city of Detroit filed a public nuisance lawsuit in July of last year in the Michigan Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit against Real Token, its co-founders and 165 affiliated entities, alleging building code and safety violations across over 400 Detroit residential properties.[1] RealT is a blockchain real estate platform that sells fractional interests in individual U.S. rental properties through the issuance of crypto security tokens.

On July 22, the judge issued a temporary restraining order — later converted into a preliminary injunction on Nov. 4 — barring RealT from collecting rent, pursuing evictions without a certificate of …

Blockchain Coming To A Block Near You: How Fintech Is Changing Real Estate Investing, Joseph Bizub, Justin Peralta, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Until 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 purview of small investors who invested locally. Today, because of technological advances, these owner-occupants and investors face competition from an emerging class of decentralized finance (DeFi) investors. Fintech companies are presenting DeFi investors with new approaches to the challenges that real estate investing traditionally poses: illiquidity, high capital requirements, lack of diversification, and opaque markets. This article focuses on how fintech companies are meeting those challenges and suggests that while much of their vaunted innovation …

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 …

Equity, Punishment, And The Company You Keep: Discerning A Disgorgement Remedy Under The Federal Securities Laws, Theresa A. Gabaldon

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Oversight Failure In Securities Markets, Yesha Yadav

Cornell Law Review

According to statute, securities exchanges play an essential role in ensuring compliance with applicable laws and industry standards. Long imagined as unique in their institutional capacity to bring traders together, collect information and exclude problem participants from the marketplace, exchanges have offered an efficient source of private discipline for public regulators. The classic conception of the exchange, however, no longer holds true in today's markets. Rather than concentrate activity within a handful of exchanges, equity markets are fragmented across a network of thirteen exchanges and around forty lightly regulated, off-exchange alternative venues (colloquially, "dark pools"). This Article shows that the …

Split Derivatives: Inside The World's Most Misunderstood Contract, Dan Awrey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Derivatives are the "bad boys" of modern finance: exciting, dangerous, and fundamentally misunderstood. These misunderstandings stem from the failure of scholars and policymakers to fully appreciate the unique legal and economic structure of derivative contracts, along with the important differences between these contracts and conventional equity and debt securities. This Article seeks to correct these misunderstandings by splitting derivative contracts open, identifying their constituent elements, and observing how these elements interact with one another. These elements include some of the world's most sophisticated state-contingent contracting, the allocation of property and decision-making rights, and relational mechanisms such as reputation and the …

Foreign Initial Coin Offering Issuers Beware: The Securities And Exchange Commission Is Watching, Julianna Debler

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Global Body And A Global Problem: The Curious Case Of The G-20 And Securities Regulation, Tamilla Nurizada

Cornell International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Mechanisms Of Derivatives Market Efficiency, Dan Awrey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

These are not your parents' financial markets. A generation ago, the image of Wall Street was one of floor traders and stockbrokers, of opening bells and ticker symbols, of titans of industry and barbarians at the gate. These images reflected the prevailing view in which stock markets stood at the center of the financial universe. The high point of this equity-centric view coincided with the development of a significant body of empirical literature examining the efficient market hypothesis (EMH): the prediction that prices within an efficient stock market will fully incorporate all available information. Over time, this equity-centric view became …

The Macroprudential Turn: From Institutional 'Safety And Soundness' To Systematic 'Financial Stability' In Financial Supervision, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Since the global financial dramas of 2008-09, authorities on financial regulation have come increasingly to counsel the inclusion of macroprudential policy instruments in the standard ‘toolkit’ of finance-regulatory measures employed by financial supervisors. The hallmark of this perspective is its focus not simply on the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions, as is characteristic of the traditional ‘microprudential’ perspective, but also on certain structural features of financial systems that can imperil such systems as wholes. Systemic ‘financial stability’ thus comes to supplement, though not to supplant, institutional ‘safety and soundness’ as a regulatory desideratum.

The move from primarily micro- …

Remic Tax Enforcement As Financial-Market Regulator, Bradley T. Borden, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Lawmakers, prosecutors, homeowners, policymakers, investors, news media, scholars and other commentators have examined, litigated, and reported on numerous aspects of the 2008 Financial Crisis and the role that residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) played in that crisis. Big banks create RMBS by pooling mortgage notes into trusts and selling interests in those trusts as RMBS. Absent from prior work related to RMBS securitization is the tax treatment of RMBS mortgage-note pools and the critical role tax enforcement should play in ensuring the integrity of mortgage-note securitization.

This Article is the first to examine federal tax aspects of RMBS mortgage-note pools formed …

An Overview Of The Fannie And Freddie Conservatorship Litigation, David Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are subject to the vagaries of politics, regulation, public opinion, the economy, and not least of all the numerous cases that have been filed in 2013 against various government entities arising from the placement of the two companies into conservatorship. This short article will provide an overview of the last of these. The litigation surrounding Fannie and Freddie’s conservatorship raises all sorts of issues about the federal government’s involvement in housing finance. These issues are worth setting forth as the proper role of these two companies in the housing finance system is …

Lawyers And Fools: Lawyer-Directors In Public Corporations, Lubomir P. Litov, Simone M. Sepe, Charles K. Whitehead

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The accepted wisdom—that a lawyer who becomes a corporate director has a fool for a client—is outdated. The benefits of lawyer-directors in today’s world significantly outweigh the costs. Beyond monitoring, they help manage litigation and regulation, as well as structure compensation to align CEO and shareholder interests. The results have been an average 9.5% increase in firm value and an almost doubling in the percentage of public companies with lawyer-directors.

This Article is the first to analyze the rise of lawyer-directors. It makes a variety of other empirical contributions, each of which is statistically significant and large in magnitude. First, …

Market Collaboration: Finance, Culture, And Ethnography After Neoliberalism, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the wake of the disasters of March 2011, financial regulators and financial-risk management experts in Japan expressed little hope that much could be done nor did they take great interest in defining possible policy interventions. This curious response to regulatory crisis coincided with a new fascination with culturalist explanations of financial markets, on the one hand, and a resort to what I term “data politics”—a politics of intensified data collection—on the other. In this article, I analyze these developments as being exemplary of a new regulatory moment characterized by a loss of faith in both free market regulation and …

Dirty Remics, Revisited, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dirt Lawyers And Dirty Remics, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

It is appropriate that the day-to-day practice of real estate law did not touch on the intricacies of the securitization of mortgages, let alone the tax laws that apply to mortgage-backed securities. Securitization professionals did not, however, account for the day-to-day practices of real estate lawyers as they relate to the transfer and assignment of mortgage notes and mortgages when structuring mortgage-backed securities. The consequences of this may turn out to be severe for investors, underwriters, and securitization professionals.

One of the consequences of the sale of a negotiable note not done in accordance with the requirements of the holder …

The Shareholder Value Myth, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Accidental Suicide Pacts And Creditor Collective Action Problems: The Mortgage Mess, The Deadweight Loss, And How To Get The Value Back, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Sustained economic recovery will remain elusive in America, post-crash, until principal is reduced on some 10-13 million underwater home mortgage loans across the nation. Yet in the case of privately securitized loans, these write-downs are all but impossible to carry out on the requisite scale because bubble-era securitization contracts, which now effectively function as suicide pacts among bondholders, would require collective action by millions of geographically dispersed passive investors in order to authorize write-downs or sales out of securitization trusts. The solution, this article suggests, is for state and municipal governments to use their eminent domain powers to buy up …

Paying Paul And Robbing No One: An Eminent Domain Solution For Underwater Mortgage Debt, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In the view of many analysts, the best way to assist “underwater” homeowners — those who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth — is to reduce the principal on their home loans. Yet in the case of privately securitized mortgages, such write-downs are almost impossible to carry out, since loan modifications on the scale necessitated by the housing market crash would require collective action by a multitude of geographically dispersed security holders. The solution, this study suggests, is for state and municipal governments to use their eminent domain powers to buy up and restructure underwater mortgages, …

A Federalist Blessing In Disguise: From National Inaction To Local Action On Underwater Mortgages, Robert C. Hockett, John Vlahoplus

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

While it is widely recognized that the mortgage debt overhang left by the housing price bubble and bust continues to operate as the principal drag upon U.S. macroeconomic recovery, few seem to appreciate just how locally concentrated the problem is. This paper takes the measure of the national mortgage debt overhang problem as a cluster of local problems warranting local action. It then elaborates on one form of such action that the localized nature of the ongoing mortgage crisis justifies - use of municipal eminent domain authority to purchase underwater loans, then modify them in a manner that benefits debtors, …

On The Rise Of Shareholder Primacy, Signs Of Its Fall, And The Return Of Managerialism (In The Closet), Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nullifying The Debt Ceiling Threat Once And For All: Why The President Should Embrace The Least Unconstitutional Option, Neil H. Buchanan, Michael C. Dorf

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In August 2011, Congress and the President narrowly averted economic and political catastrophe, agreeing at the last possible moment to authorize a series of increases in the national debt ceiling. This respite, unfortunately, was merely temporary. The amounts of the increases in the debt ceiling that Congress authorized in 2011 were only sufficient to accommodate the additional borrowing that would be necessary through the end of 2012. In an economy that continued to show chronic weakness -- weakness that continues to this day -- the federal government would predictably continue to collect lower-than-normal tax revenues and to make higher-than-normal expenditures, …

Beneficial Ownership And The Remic Classification Rules, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

REMICs are securitized pools of mortgages that qualify for special flow-through taxation. To qualify for flow-through tax treatment, the pool must satisfy several requirements. An intended REMIC that fails to satisfy those requirements will likely be taxed as a corporation and payments made to holders of interests in a failed REMIC will likely be nondeductible dividend payments, subjecting the REMIC to significant tax and penalties. Such tax and penalties will cause beneficial interests in the pool to lose value and frustrate investors who relied upon REMIC classification as an incentive to purchase interests. Thus, tax classification is critical to REMICs …

Once A Failed Remic, Never A Remic, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Investors in mortgage-backed securities, built on the shoulders of the tax-advantaged Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (“REMIC”), may be facing extraordinary tax losses because of how bankers and lawyers structured (or failed to structure) these securities. This calamity is compounded by the fact that those professional advisors should have known that the REMICs they created were flawed from the start.

Wall Street Rules, Bradley T. Borden, David J. Reiss

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Investors in mortgage-backed securities, built on the shoulders of the tax-advantaged Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (“REMIC”), may be facing extraordinary tax losses because of how bankers and lawyers structured these securities. This calamity is compounded by the fact that those professional advisors should have known that the REMICs they created were flawed from the start. If these losses are realized, those professionals will face suits for damages so large that they could put them out of business.

Uncertainty, Dangerous Optimism, And Speculation: An Inquiry Into Some Limits Of Democratic Governance, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

People are often optimistic. Nearly fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, but one survey found that 100 percent of individuals planning to get married believed they would never get divorced. Most people think they drive better than the average driver, and at one university, ninety-four percent of professors placed themselves in the top fifty percent in terms of teaching skills. We often seem to think we are like the youth of Garrison Keillor’s fictional hometown Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average.”

This is not always a bad thing. Optimism can be advantageous. Without optimism, Columbus might …

Were "It" To Happen: Contract Continuity Under Euro Regime Change, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

One way or another, the European Monetary Union (EMU) is apt to endure. The prospect of continuation under the precise contours of the regime as we presently find it, however, is anything but certain. Hence many investors and other actual or prospective contract parties are likely to remain skittish until matters grow clearer. This skittishness, importantly, can itself hamper the prospect of expeditious European recovery. Addressing particular sources of ongoing uncertainty about EMU prospects can itself therefore aid in the project of recovery.

This Essay accordingly aims to impose structure upon one particular, and indeed particularly complex, source of uncertainty …

Regulating Financial Innovation: A More Principles-Based Proposal?, Dan Awrey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Modem financial markets are characterized by complexity, seemingly perpetual innovation, chronic asymmetries of information and expertise, and pervasive agency costs. Perhaps nowhere are these characteristics-or their attendant regulatory challenges-more pronounced than within OTC derivatives markets. Mounting effective responses to these challenges must be considered amongst the most difficult and important tasks confronting financial regulators. Prescriptive, rules-based approaches toward financial regulation have thus far proven inadequate to this task. Through the utilization of outcome-oriented principles, enhanced dialogic relationships, intensive supervision, and targeted and proportional (yet vigorous) enforcement, "more principles-based" financial regulation (MPBR) manifests the potential to overcome these challenges and, in …

Derivatives And The Legal Origin Of The 2008 Credit Crisis, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Experts still debate what caused the credit crisis of 2008. This Article argues that dubious honor belongs, first and foremost, to a little-known statute called the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). Put simply, the credit crisis was not primarily due to changes in the markets; it was due to changes in the law. In particular, the crisis was the direct and foreseeable (and in fact foreseen by the author and others) consequence of the CFMA’s sudden and wholesale removal of centuries-old legal constraints on speculative trading in over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives.

Derivative contracts are probabilistic bets on future events. …

Risk, Speculation, And Otc Derivatives: An Inaugural Essay For Convivium, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Speculative trading, including speculative trading in derivatives, is often claimed to provide social benefits by decreasing risk and improving the accuracy of market prices. This assumption overlooks the possibility that speculation can be driven not just by differences in traders' risk aversion and information investments, but also by differences in traders' subjective expectations. Disagreement-based speculation erodes traders' returns, increases traders' risks, and can distort market prices. There is reason to believe that by 2008, the market for OTC derivatives may have been dominated by disagreement-based speculation that contributed to the Fall 2008 credit crisis.