Securities Law Commons^™

Hands-Off Options, Jesse M. Fried

Vanderbilt Law Review

Executive compensation long has attracted considerable interest from investors, academics, regulators, and the media. It received increased attention in the wake of the Enron and other corporate governance scandals that erupted at the beginning of the century. Hundreds of firms were found to have engaged in various forms of earnings manipulation that, ultimately, destroyed tens of billions of dollars of social value. Much of this earnings manipulation was linked to executives' pay arrangements, such as their ability to time the unwinding of their equity incentives. The scandals eventually led to some of the most important corporate governance reforms in decades, …

Proxy Contests In An Era Of Increasing Shareholder Power: Forget Issuer Proxy Access And Focus On E-Proxy, Jeffrey N. Gordon

Vanderbilt Law Review

The current debate over shareholder access to the issuer's proxy statement for the purpose of making director nominations is both overstated in its importance and misses the serious issue in question. The Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC's") new e- proxy rules, which permit reliance on proxy materials posted on a website, should substantially reduce the production and distribution cost differences between a meaningful contest waged via the issuer's proxy and a freestanding proxy solicitation. No matter which avenue is used, however, the serious question relates to the appropriate disclosure required of a shareholder nominator. Should the nominator be subject to …

There Are Plaintiffs And ... There Are Plaintiffs: An Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Action Settlements, James D. Cox, Randall S. Thomas, Lynn Bai

Vanderbilt Law Review

Reform of the securities class action is once again the subject of national debate. The impetus for this debate is the reports of three different groups-the Committee on Capital Market Regulation,' the Commission on the Regulation of U.S. Capital Markets in the 21st Century, and McKinsey & Company.3 Each of the reports focuses on a single theme: how the contemporary regulatory culture places U.S. capital markets at a competitive disadvantage to foreign markets. While the reports target multiple regulatory forces in their calls for reform, each report singles out securities class actions as one of the prime villains that place …

The Lead Plaintiff Provisions Of The Pslra After A Decade, Or "Look What's Happened To My Baby", Elliott J. Weiss

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 1995, my colleague John Beckerman and I had an experience shared by very few legal academics. We mailed the galley proofs of an article that we had written to the staff of a Senate Committee and then saw the Committee, the Senate, and the full Congress enact into law a bill that included all of the recommendations in our article. The article was Let the Money Do the Monitoring: How Institutional Investors Can Reduce Agency Costs in Securities Class Actions; the law was the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("PSLRA"). The relevant provisions of the PSLRA, now …

The Evolving Role Of Institutional Investors In Corporate Governance And Corporate Litigation, Randall Thomas

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Each of the articles in this Symposium sheds new light on the ever-changing role of institutional investors in U.S. corporate governance and corporate litigation. They cover a broad range of topics, including institutional investor activism on executive compensation, proxy access initiatives at the SEC, state and federal litigation, and the current levels of activism by public pension funds. The data and the theoretical contributions of these articles provide important foundation for the ongoing discussion about the role of institutional investors.

There Are Plaintiffs And . . . There Are Plaintiffs: An Empirical Analysis Of Securities Class Action Settlements, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox, Lynn Bai

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this paper, we examine the impact of the PSLRA and more particularly the impact the type of lead plaintiff on the size of settlements in securities fraud class actions. We thus provide insight into whether the type of plaintiff that heads the class action impacts the overall outcome of the case. Furthermore, we explore possible indicia that may explain why some suits settle for extremely small sums - small relative to the "provable losses" suffered by the class, small relative to the asset size of the defendant-company, and small relative to other settlements in our sample. This evidence bears …

Public Pension Funds As Shareholder Activists: A Comment On Choi And Fisch, Randall Thomas

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The world of shareholder activism has expanded dramatically over the past twenty years so that it now contains a broad set of actors carrying on a wide range of activities. At one end of the spectrum, hedge fund activist shareholders have taken large investment positions in targeted companies and spent significant amounts of money lobbying aggressively for a host of structural changes at these corporations. At a more intermediate level of activism are the labor union pension funds. The union funds have been active, making innovative uses of the federal securities laws to get shareholder proposals on corporate ballots and …

Does The Plaintiff Matter? An Empirical Analysis Of Lead Plaintiffs In Securities Class Actions, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The PSLRA's lead plaintiff provision was adopted in order to encourage large shareholders with claims in a securities fraud class action to step forward to become the class' representative. Congress' expectation was that these investors would actively monitor the conduct of a securities fraud class action so as to reduce the litigation agency costs that may arise when class counsel's interests diverge from those of the shareholder class. Proponents of the provision claimed that there would be substantial benefits from having institutional investors serve as lead plaintiffs. Now, ten years later, the claim that the lead plaintiff is a more …

Realigning The Corporate-Stockholder Relationship: Facilitating Stockholder Communications During Active Proxy Solicitations, Michael Burgoyne

Vanderbilt Law Review

The bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation in December of 2001 "sent shock waves throughout the country" that forced both Wall Street and the average investor to rethink our system of corporate governance. WorldCom, the second-largest long distance carrier in the United States, topped Enron by filing an even larger bankruptcy in 2002 with pre-petition assets estimated at a staggering $103,914,000,000. Although these were two of the largest bankruptcy filings in United States history, Enron and WorldCom were merely the tip of the iceberg. Similar scandals at Adelphia Communications, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, HealthSouth, Qwest, Rite Aid, Tyco, and Xerox represent …

Letting Billions Slip Through Your Fingers: Empirical Evidence And Legal Implications Of The Failure Of Financial Institutions To Participate In Securities Class Action Settlements, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article presents the results of an empirical investigation of the frequency with which financial institutions submit claims in settled securities class actions. We combine an empirical study of a large set of settlements with the results of a survey of institutional investors about their claims filing practices. Our sample for the first part of the analysis contains 118 settlements that were not included in our earlier study. We find that less than 30% of institutional investors with provable losses perfect their claims in these settlements. We then explore the possible explanations for this widespread failure. We suggest a wide …

Public And Private Enforcement Of The Securities Laws: Have Things Changed Since Enron?, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this paper, we examine how those corporations that have been the targets of SEC enforcement efforts compare in terms of their size and financial health vis-a-vis firms that are targeted only by the private securities class action. We also ask whether the SEC or the private bar systematically proceeds against violators that cause the greatest loss to investors. In this regard, we are intrigued by the most basic question posed by private suits, whether settlements bear any relationship to the losses suffered by the class and whether those losses bear any relationship to the size of either the firm …

Assessing The Deterrent Effect Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act's Certification Provisions, Kathleen A. Lacey, Barbara C. George, Clyde Stoltenberg

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In the 1970s, Congress reacted to the financial wrongdoing of Lockheed Corp. and others by enacting § 102 of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which (1) requires corporations to keep records that accurately reflect financial transactions and (2) mandates a system of internal accounting controls. Going a step further in 2002, Congress responded to the Enron scandal by imposing personal accountability on chief executive officers in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOA). After recounting responses prior to the existence of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to corporate abuses and the historical background of the SEC's requirements for corporate financial reporting …

The Evidence On Securities Class Actions, Stephen J. Choi

Vanderbilt Law Review

Shareholders of large publicly held corporations face a well- known collective action problem. To the extent an individual shareholder bears all the costs of activities that benefit the entire group of shareholders (giving the individual shareholder only a fraction of the benefits), the individual shareholder will have marginal incentive to pursue such collective activities. Corporations owe their shareholders specific duties and rights. However, due to the collective action problem, no single shareholder may seek to litigate these rights. In the context of the federal securities laws within the United States, the U.S. regime provides a solution: private class actions. This …

The Public And Private Faces Of Derivative Lawsuits, Randall S. Thomas, Robert B. Thompson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Derivative suits, long the principal vehicle for discussions about representative litigation in corporate and securities law, now share the stage with younger cousins - securities fraud class actions and state law fiduciary duty class actions. At the same time alternative governance vehicles - independent directors, auditors and other reforms that have followed in the wake of Enron - potentially diminish the relative place of litigation such as derivative suits. This article presents data from all derivative suits filed in Delaware over a two-year period. We find a relatively small number, certainly as compared to fiduciary class action and securities fraud …

The New Look Of Shareholder Litigation: Acquisition-Oriented Class Actions, Randall Thomas, Robert B. Thompson

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Shareholder litigation is the most frequently maligned legal check on managerial misconduct within corporations. Derivative lawsuits and federal securities class actions are portrayed as slackers in debates over how best to control the managerial agency costs created by the separation of ownership and control in the modern corporation. In each instance, early hopes these suits would effectively monitor managerial misconduct have been replaced with concerns about the size of the litigation agency costs of such representative litigation, which can arise when a self-selected plaintiff's attorney and her client that are appointed to pursue the claims of an entire class of …

Sec Enforcement Heuristics: An Empirical Inquiry, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article examines the overlap between SEC securities enforcement actions and private securities fraud class actions. We begin with an overview of data concerning all SEC enforcement actions from 1997 to 2002. We find that the volume of SEC enforcement proceedings is relatively modest. We next examine the scope of the recently enacted "Fair Fund" provision that authorizes the SEC to designate civil penalties it recovers from defendants to benefit defrauded private investors. We conclude that this provision offers only limited potential relief for private investors. We complete this Part of the Article with an analysis of the serious resource …

Unfit To Serve: Permanently Barring People From Serving As Officers And Directors Of Publicly Traded Companies After The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Philip F.S. Berg

Vanderbilt Law Review

On June 4, 2003, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was indicted on multiple criminal and civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission). The charges, including obstruction of justice and civil insider trading, stemmed from Stewart's sale of ImClone stock shortly before the Food and Drug Administration rejected a drug produced by ImClone and sent the company's stock price tumbling. Although Stewart could face a number of serious penalties under her criminal indictment, the primary remedy sought by the SEC for her civil insider trading charges is rather uncommon-a bar from serving as a director of Martha Stewart …

Securities Fraud As Corporate Governance: Reflections Upon Federalism, Robert B. Thompson, Hillary A. Sale

Vanderbilt Law Review

State law gives corporate managers extremely broad power to direct increasingly large pools of collective business assets. Not surprisingly, economic incentives, norms, markets, and law all work to constrain the breadth of the power and the potential for abuse of what is other people's money.' State corporate law has occupied the center stage in the legal portion of this landscape, with federal securities law playing a supporting role-at least in the academic presentation of the debate. The New Deal's securities legislation eschewed a general federal corporations statute in favor of a more focused federal role emphasizing disclosure and antifraud protections …

Recent Cases, Law Review Editor

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Remedies--Fair Labor Standards Act--Private Damage Suit Unavailable to Redress Violations of Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act

Securities Regulation--Commercial Paper--Promissory Notes with Maturity Not Exceeding Nine Months but Offered to Public as Investment Are "Securities" Within Section 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act.

Securities Regulation--Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5--A Reorganization in the Form of a Tripartite Merger in Which There Is No Change in the Total Assets Represented by a Share of Stock Does Not Involve a "Purchase or Sale" Within the Meaning of Section 10(b) of The Securities Exchange Act …

The Critical Resource Theory Of Fiduciary Duty, D. Gordon Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article proposes a new theory to unify the law of fiduciary duty. The prevailing view holds that fiduciary law is atomistic, arising for varied reasons in established categories of cases (such as trustee-beneficiary and director-shareholder) and ad hoc in relation- ships where one person trusts another and becomes vulnerable to harm as a result. By contrast, the critical resource theory of fiduciary duty holds that every relationship properly designated as "fiduciary" conforms to the following pattern: One party (the "fiduciary') acts on behalf of another party (the "beneficiary') while exercising discretion with respect to a critical resource belonging to …

Leaving Money On The Table: Do Institutional Investors Fail To File Claims In Securities Class Actions?, Randall Thomas, James D. Cox

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this paper, we examine the role of institutional investors in securities fraud class actions. We begin by surveying the first five years of experience with the Lead Plaintiff provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA). In particular, we look at those cases where the lead plaintiff position has been contested and the outcome of those disputes. We find that institutional investors have been very successful in obtaining the position of lead plaintiff where they have sought it, but that there are a number of cases where they were unsuccessful. In part two of the paper, we dissect …

Information Technology And Non-Legal Sanctions In Financing Transactions, Ronald J. Mann

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Essay investigates the effect of advances in information technology on the private institutions that businesses use to resolve information asymmetries in financing transactions. The first part of the Essay discusses how information technology can permit direct verification of the information, obviating the problem entirely; the Essay discusses the example of the substitution of the debit card for the check, which provides an immediate payment that obviates the need for the merchant to consider whether payment will be forthcoming when the check is presented to the bank on which it is drawn.

The second part of the Essay discusses how …

The Unclear "Clear And Unmistakable" Standard: Why Arbitrators, Not Courts, Should Determine Whether A Securities Investor's Claim Is Arbitrable, Guy Nelson

Vanderbilt Law Review

When an individual investor opens an account with a securities broker, the customer often must sign a standard-form contract as a precondition of conducting business with the broker. This non- negotiable contract, referred to as a Customer Agreement, generally contains an arbitration clause under which the parties agree to submit any future disputes to arbitration conducted by one of the securities industry's self-regulatory organizations ("SROs"). Proceedings initiated under the broad and inclusive arbitration clause are subject to the arbitration guidelines established by the SROs, a group which includes all the major stock exchanges. Virtually all brokers are members of an …

Measuring Securities Market Efficiency In The Regulatory Setting, Randall Thomas, James F. Cotter

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In the "Aircraft Carrier," the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed changes in federal securities disclosure requirements in an attempt to enhance and facilitate the process of issuing new securities. Under the proposed regulatory regime, the registration process would be simplified so that many larger, more experienced issuers would be able to use a new, shorter registration statement called Form B (as opposed to the more extensive Form A) whenever they sell securities to the public. To qualify to use Form B, a company with at least twelve months reporting history under the Exchange Act must either have a public …

The Determinants Of Shareholder Voting On Stock Option Plans, Randall S. Thomas, Kenneth J. Martin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Over the past decade, executive compensation has become a controversial topic. Increasingly, corporate boards of directors are confronted by angry shareholder groups over the size and composition of executive pay packages. One of the most important focal points for these tensions arises when shareholders are asked by the board to approve the creation of new stock option plans, or the amendment of existing plans. This article seeks to identify the factors that lead shareholders to support or oppose stock option plans. We examine the justifications for the widespread use of stock options and identify several benefits from stock option plans …

Don't Sell Out, Sell Bonds: The Pullman Group's Securitization Of The Music Industry, Hewson Chen

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Securitization is the selling of debt to investors. In general, securitization converts future income streams like credit card receivables or auto loan payments to present in-pocket cash. Notably, this transformation from future income to current wealth gives the issuer of the security immediate access to cash at less cost than other financing methods such as bank loans. In the 1970s, this technique was applied to the housing industry, and since then, securitization has evolved into greater varieties of income streams, including medical insurance, typhoon insurance, and unused airline tickets. The application of securitization in the entertainment industry, however, remains largely …

Europe And Overseas Commodity Traders V. Banque Paribas London: Zero Steps Forward And Two Steps Back, Paige K. Willison

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

While international securities transactions have become the norm in today's globalized economy, such transactions necessarily implicate the laws of more than one nation, thereby creating both conflict and confusion. Due to the depth and breadth of U.S. securities laws, plaintiffs often prefer to sue in the United States under U.S. law. Yet inappropriately applying U.S. law to transnational transactions may offend notions of comity. This Note discusses the different tools used to decide the following jurisdictional issues. First, under what circumstances do U.S. anti-fraud rules apply to securities transactions? Second, under what circumstances do U.S. registration laws apply? Over the …

Securities Fraud Or Mere Puffery: Refinement Of The Corporate Puffery Defense, R. Gregory Roussel

Vanderbilt Law Review

A corporation's use of forward-looking corporate statements' is a common, arguably essential, element of the landscape of modern financial markets. Unfortunately, the failure to meet the expectations created by forward-looking statements often serves as the basis for a potentially devastating private action for securities fraud. Before Congress responded to frivolous private securities fraud class actions with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, ("Reform Act") the judiciary took it upon itself to provide relief to burdened corporations. In doing so, the courts focused on the materiality of the corporation's statements, an essential building block in the plaintiffs construction of …

Should Labor Be Allowed To Submit Shareholder Proposals?, Randall Thomas, Kenneth J. Martin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Article, we investigate whether labor unions and related entities should be permitted to continue to make shareholder proposals using Rule 14a-8 of the federal securities laws. We focus on the claim that labor is using the shareholder proposal mechanism to further the interests of workers at the expense of other shareholders. In particular, corporate management groups have suggested that when labor is involved in collective bargaining negotiations with management, it should be barred from submitting shareholder proposals because labor proposals seek to further interests not shared by other security holders of the company. Using data on shareholder proposals …

Realizing The Re-Emergence Of The Chinese Stock Market: Fact Or Fiction?, Ann P. Vandevelde

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The stock market which currently exists in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a product of the "open door policy" introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, following the death of Mao Zedong, to promote economic development over class struggle. Following limited experimentation with stock issuance at the local level, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges opened in 1990 and 1991 respectively. Since its recent inception, China's stock market--which comprises the trading of domestically owned A-Shares and foreign-owned B-Shares--has experienced impressive growth together with periods of volatility as well as lackluster performance. Recent performance of A-Share trading has been strong, …