Securities Law Commons^™

How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Richard Squire

Faculty Scholarship

Corporations insure against liability in shareholder lawsuits by buying tiered coverage from multiple insurers who each cover a distinct segment of the potential damages range. Rather than negotiating to settle individually with the plaintiff, the insurers seek to reach a single, collectively binding settlement agreement. This combination of segmented coverage and collective settlements produces a conflict of interests: the corporation’s managers and some insurers are better off if the case settles pre-trial for the expected damages, while other insurers are better off going to trial. To force reluctant insurers to settle, courts have created a duty that can require an …

Private Equity Firms: Beyond Sec Registration As An Investment Adviser How To Build And Administer An Effective Compliance Program, Susan Mosher

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC” or the “Commission”) recently adopted new rules and rule amendments under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) that serve to implement provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”).1 The new rules and rule amendments under the Advisers Act relate to provisions of Title IV of the Dodd-Frank Act (the Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act of 2010) that, among other things, require certain private fund advisers and private equity firms to register with the Commission.2 This article is intended to assist firms that …

The Meaning Of The Market Myth, Benjamin Means

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This Book Review contends that the perfectly rational market may be a myth, not just in the sense of a false or over-simplified account of reality, but also in the deeper, anthropological sense of cultural explanation. Part I describes how rational-market theories were developed by financial economists and applied to Wall Street, sometimes without adequate appreciation for the difference between simplified economic models and real-world behavior. Part II contends that if the rational-market theory has met with acceptance that outstrips its empirical support, the favorable reception may be explained in part by the theory’s congruence with broader normative views about …

A Very Quiet Revolution: A Primer On Securities Crowdfunding And Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, Thaya Brook Knight, Huiwen Leo, Adrian A. Ohmer

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

This essay introduces the complex regulatory regime that governs the public sale of all securities, no matter how small the offeror. It is intended as a rudimentary roadmap for the start-up or its counsel and will, hopefully, help to illuminate the traps for the unwary while providing an overview of the regulatory universe in which securities crowdfunding will operate.

High-Frequency Trading: Should Regulators Do More, Matt Prewitt

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

High-Frequency Trading ("HFT") is a diverse set of algorithmic trading strategies characterized by fast order execution. Its importance in international markets has increased vastly in recent years. From a regulatory perspective, HFT presents difficult and partially unresolved questions. The difficulties stem partly from the fact that HFT encompasses a wide range of trading strategies, and partly from a dearth of unambiguous empirical findings about HFT's effects on markets. Yet certain important conclusions are broadly accepted. HFT can increase systemic risk by causing or exacerbating events like the "Flash Crash" of May 6, 2010. HFT can also enable market manipulators to …

The Falsity-Scienter Inference, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

No abstract provided.

Valuing Derivative Suits In Mergers Of Food And Natural Resource Corporations Through Analyzing The Massey And Alpha Natural Resources Merger: Methods Of Ensuring Corporate Accountability And Maximizing Shareholder Value, Robert Proudfoot

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Mutual Fund Performance Advertising: Inherently And Materially Misleading?, Alan R. Palmiter, Ahmed E. Taha

Georgia Law Review

Mutual fund companies routinely advertise the past
returns of their strong-performing, actively-managed
equity funds. These performance advertisements imply
that the advertised high past returns are likely to
continue. Indeed, investors flock to these funds despite
high past returns being a poor predictor of high future
returns. Thus, fund performance advertising is inherently
and materially misleading and violates federal securities
antifraud standards. In addition, the SEC-mandated
warning in these advertisements that "past performance
does not guarantee future results"fails to temper investors'
focus on past returns.
The SEC should do more to prevent investors from being
misled by fund performance advertisements. It …

Skimming From The 2%: The Status Of Georgia's Restrictions On Shareholder Access To Corporate Information, Ruari J. O'Sullivan

Georgia Law Review

The Georgia Court of Appeals, in Mannato v. SunTrust
Banks, Inc., held that O.C.G.A. § 14-2-1602 abrogated all
common law rights to inspect corporate records. As a
result, shareholders in Georgia owning less than 2% of a
corporation'soutstandingshares suddenly lost the right to
petition a court to grant access to a corporation's books
and records. This Note argues that the Mannato decision
was incorrect. The Georgia Court of Appeals failed to
notice the significant procedural differences that existed
between the statutory and common law right of inspection
and erroneously applied Georgia's established law of
statutory abrogation. The court also brushed …

The Failure Of Investor Protection By Disclosure, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

This Article deals with the issue of investor protection by disclosure. It discusses the evolution of disclosure in the financial area during the past thirty years, the role of disclosure in the regulation of intermediaries, and the current strong disagreements concerning the Dodd-Frank Act's mandate applicable to market brokers. The Article notes the role of disclosure in the restructured financial intermediation system, its failure to protect investors, and concludes with suggestions to partially correct the failure and restore the rationale for effective disclosure. Disclosure should apply to the risks posed by the intermediaries rather than to the dangers and risks …

At&T Mobility And Faa Over-Preemption, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court's recent arbitration law decisions reflect the Court's strong support for arbitration agreements, but also severely limit the states’ powers to police the fairness of arbitration. In particular, the Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, LLC expands the FAA preemption doctrine beyond its prior boundaries, signaling how far the Court is willing to go to support arbitration clauses at the expense of states’ rights and the values of federalism. This article explores the impact of AT&T Mobility on the preemption of state arbitration law, and the concomitant impact on the balance between state and federal power in …

Investor Protection Meets The Federal Arbitration Act, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the past three decades, most recently in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, the United States Supreme Court has advanced an aggressive pro-arbitration campaign, transforming the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) into a powerful source of anti-consumer substantive arbitration law. In the aftermath of AT&T Mobility, which upheld a prohibition on class actions in a consumer contract despite state law that refused to enforce such provisions on unconscionability grounds, efforts have been made to prohibit investors from bringing class actions or joining claims, including claims under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act). In the most egregious example to …

More Money, More Problems: How Oklahoma’S Novel Approach To Ponzi Scheme Clawbacks In Oklahoma Department Of Securities Ex Rel. Faught V. Blair Means More Uncertainty For Investors, Elizabeth Blair Wozobski

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Inquiry Notice: Merck & Co. V. Reynolds And The Need For Requiring Private Investors To Investigate Potential Securities Fraud, Joel Alan Borkenhagen

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Bizarre Law & Economics Of 'Business Roundtable V. Sec', Grant M. Hayden, Matthew T. Bodie

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporations are legal entities designed to foster certain kinds of collective economic activity. The decisionmaking power within a corporation ultimately rests with a board of directors elected by shareholders. Shareholders, however, do not use anything like a conventional ballot in these elections; instead, they fill out a “proxy ballot,” delivered to them by the incumbent board. This proxy ballot lists only the incumbent board’s chosen nominees, very often the board members themselves. If a shareholder wants to run for director or propose another nominee for the board, she needs to provide all other shareholders with a separate proxy ballot — …

Chevron, Greenwashing, And The Myth Of 'Green Oil Companies', Miriam A. Cherry, Judd F. Sneirson

All Faculty Scholarship

As green business practices grow in popularity, so does the temptation to “greenwash” one’s business to appear more environmentally and socially responsible than it actually is. We examined this phenomenon in an earlier paper, using BP and the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe as a case study and developing a framework for policing dubious claims of corporate social responsibility. This Article revisits these issues focusing on Chevron, an oil company that claims in its advertisements to care deeply about the environment and the communities in which it operates, even as it faces an $18 billion judgment for polluting the Ecuadorean Amazon and …

Remedies For Foreign Investors Under U.S. Federal Securities Law, Hannah Buxbaum

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In its 2010 decision in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, the Supreme Court held that the general anti-fraud provision of U.S. securities law applies only to (a) transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges and (b) domestic transactions in other securities. That decision forecloses the use of the “foreign-cubed” class action, and in general precludes the vast majority of claims that might otherwise have been brought in U.S. court by foreign investors. This article assesses the post-Morrison landscape, addressing the question of remedies in U.S. courts for investors defrauded in foreign transactions. It begins by reviewing the current case law, …

Selective Disclosure By Federal Officials And The Case For An Fgd (Fairer Government Disclosure) Regime, Donna M. Nagy, Richard W. Painter

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article addresses a problem at the intersection of securities regulation and government ethics: the selective disclosure of market-moving information, by federal officials in the executive and legislative branches, to securities investors outside the government who use that information for trading. These privileged investors, often aided by political intelligence consultants, can profit substantially from their access to knowledgeable sources inside the government. In most instances, however, neither the disclosure nor the trading violates the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws (under which the insider trading prohibitions arise). This legally protected favoritism undermines investor confidence in the fairness and integrity …

The Extraterritorial Provisions Of The Dodd-Frank Act Protects U.S. Taxpayers From Worldwide Bailouts, Michael Greenberger

Faculty Scholarship

The significant extraterritorial scope of the derivatives regulation within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act promises to foster rigorous international standards for financial regulation that will restore transparency and stability to the global derivatives market. At present, that market exceeds $700 trillion notional value, or over ten times the world GDP. Despite opposition from Wall Street to the present extraterritorial application of almost all of Dodd-Frank’s derivatives regulation, the plain language of the statute requires implementing that regulation on an appropriate extraterritorial basis in order to protect U.S. taxpayers from bailing out financial institutions engaging in foreign …

Gender And Securities Law In The Supreme Court, Lyman Johnson, Michelle M. Harner, Jason A. Cantone

Faculty Scholarship

The 2010 appointment of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court meant that, for the first time, three female justices would serve together on that court. Less clear is whether Justice Kagan’s gender will really matter in how she votes as a justice. This question is an especially visible aspect of a larger issue: do female judges display gendered voting patterns in the cases that come before them?

This article makes a novel contribution to the growing literature on female voting patterns. We investigated whether female justices on the United States Supreme Court voted differently than, or otherwise influenced, …

Cds Zombies, Anna Gelpern, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the contract interpretation strategies adopted by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) for its credit derivatives contracts in the Greek sovereign debt crisis. The authors argue that the economic function of sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) after Greece is limited and uncertain, partly thanks to ISDA’s insistence on textualist interpretation. Contract theory explanations for textualist preferences emphasise either transactional efficiency or relational factors, which do not fit ISDA or the derivatives market. The authors pose an alternative explanation: the embrace of textualism in this case may be a means for ISDA to reconcile the competing political …

An Altered Derivatives Marketplace: Clearing Swaps Under Dodd-Frank, Eduard H. Cadmus

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Though over a year has passed, the impact of the Dodd Frank Act remains unclear. This Note examines the provisions of the Act that relate to swap transactions within the context of pre-reform and postreform markets. In order to reduce the uncertainties inherent in unregulated swap transactions, the Act employs a comprehensive framework, which includes mandatory clearing through derivative clearing organizations, extensive reporting requirements, margin requirements, and position limits. This Note argues that, in doing so, the Dodd Frank Act addresses the fundamental failures of pre-reform derivative markets. However, the importance of the role for derivative clearing organizations under this …

Creatively Financed Legal Education In A Marketized Environment: How Faculty Leveraged Buyouts Can Maximize Law Schools’ Stakeholder Values, David Groshoff

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

“This [financial aid] money is not necessarily going to educate more students or to improve education. It’s a scholarship ultimately going into profits.”1

The End Of The Internal Compliance World As We Know It, Or An Enhancement Of The Effectiveness Of Securities Law Enforcement? Bounty Hunting Under The Dodd-Frank Act's Whistleblower Provision, Justin Blount, Spencer Markel

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In the wake of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme and the recent economic crisis stemming largely from loosely regulated subprime lending and mortgage-backed securities, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on July 21, 2010, signaling loudly and clearly that change is coming to Wall Street. But Wall Street is not the only one receiving a message. Buried deep within the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Act, companies can find Section 922, the whistleblower provision, which provides a bounty for whistleblowers who report securities violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.These bounty provisions and …

The New Section 1202 Tax-Free Business Sale: Congress Rewards Small Businesses That Survived The Great Recession, Beckett G. Cantley

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

On September 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Creating Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (“SBJA”) that contains a temporary amendment to Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) § 1202. The amendment permits original shareholders of eligible corporation stock to sell the stock without being taxed on the sale. The temporary amendment initially only applied to certain stock acquired after the enactment of the SBJA and before January 1, 2011, but the amendment was extended on December 17, 2010 for another year ending January 1, 2012. With the impending sunset of the 15% capital gains rate at the end of 2012, …

Lessons From The Flash Crash For The Regulation Of High-Frequency Traders, Edgar Ortega Barrales

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Are equity markets vulnerable to a sudden collapse if the traders who account for about half of the volume have no regulatory obligations to stabilize prices? After the “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, policymakers have resoundingly answered this question in the affirmative. During the worst of the crash, some of the so-called high-frequency trading firms that dominate equity markets stopped trading and prices collapsed, momentarily wiping out almost $1 trillion in market value. In response, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is considering whether high-frequency trading firms should be required to act as the traders of last resort. This …

Burning Down The House Or Simply Rolling The Dice: A Comment On Section 621 Of The Dodd-Frank Act And Recommendation For Its Implementation, Joshua R. Rosenthal

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Section 621 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act modifies the Securities Act of 1933 to prohibit the underwriter, placement agent, initial purchaser, or sponsor, or any affiliate or subsidiary of any such entity of an asset-backed financial product from betting against that very product for one year after the product’s initial sale. The rule prohibits anyone who structures or sells an asset-backed security or a product composed of asset-backed securities from going short, in the specified timeframe, on what they have sold, and labels such transactions as presenting material conflicts of interest. This Comment discusses traces …

Regulation A And The Jobs Act: A Failure To Resuscitate, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Regulation A offers small businesses an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933. The exemption is generally consistent with the obligation of the Securities and Exchange Commission to fashion exemptions that balance investor protection and capital formation. From the perspective of small businesses, the exemption may appear to provide an efficient access to external capital.

Regulation A, however, has fallen into nearly complete disuse. The millions of small businesses in this country, all of which at some point need external capital to survive and grow, simply do not use Regulation A.

Two reasons account for small …

Fraud Created The Market., Michael J. Kaufman

Faculty Publications & Other Works

As we have shown in a series of prior Articles, and as scholars have accepted since, class actions are vital to protecting investors. Presumptions of reliance facilitate class-wide resolution of securities fraud claims. Without class certification, individual damages may be de minimis, and thus investors would be unlikely to bring a securities fraud suit. This underenforcement allows those who defraud investors to skate liability and impugn the integrity of the marketplace. Under Rule 1Ob-5, for securities fraud the Supreme Court has presumed reliance to facilitate class actions where there is an omission in the face of a duty to disclose …

Messy Mental Markers: Inferring Scienter From Core Operations In Securities Fraud Litigation., Michael J. Kaufman

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.