Securities Law Commons^™

Securities Litigation As A Window Into Supreme Court Litigation, Thomas Goldstein

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Random Thoughts Of A Federal District Judge, Shira A. Scheindlin Judge

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Navigating Alternatives To Securities Fraud Class Actions: State Law And Opt-Out Litigation, Jeffrey Paul Mahoney

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Implications For Market Efficiency And Damages Analysis Of Plaintiff Interpretations Of Halliburton Ii's Statement That "Market Efficiency Is A Matter Of Degree", David Tabak

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

On June 23, 2014, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc. (“Halliburton II”) that prior case law “affords defendants an opportunity to rebut the presumption by showing, among other things, that the particular misrepresentation at issue did not affect the stock’s market price.”1 While this has generally been considered the key holding, it has not gone unnoticed that the Court affirmed its prior ruling in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson,2 mentioning that the “presumption of reliance thus does not rest on a ‘binary’ view of market efficiency”3 and, referring to the Brief for …

Greed, Envy, And The Criminalization Of Insider Trading, John P. Anderson

Journal Articles

In October 2011, a U.S. district court sentenced Raj Rajaratnam to eleven years in federal prison for insider trading. This is the longest sentence for insider trading in U.S. history, but it is significantly less than the nineteen to twenty-four-year term requested by the government. Such harsh prison terms (equal in some cases to those meted out for murder or rape) require sound justification in a liberal society. Yet jurists, politicians, and scholars have failed to offer a clear articulation of either the economic harm or the moral wrong committed by the insider trader. This Article looks to fill this …

Global Expansion Of National Securities Laws: Extraterritoriality And Jurisdictional Conflicts, Junsun Park

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “As securities fraud has grown increasingly transnational, it has become necessary to expand the reach of anti-fraud provisions to persons and entities participating in global securities markets. So far, however, no single antifraud provision exists to govern the entire global marketplace. Although each country strives to combat international securities fraud by using its own regulatory regime, problems can develop when extraterritorial application of national securities laws leads to regulatory overlapping or conflicts. In light of these problems, it is necessary to set forth clear guidelines for determining whether national securities laws can apply extraterritorially and, if so, how far …

A New Crime For Corporate Misconduct?, Peter J. Henning

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Trading Away Human Rights, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Olivier De Schutter

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Trade negotiators in Singapore recently failed to finalize a deal on the long-awaited Trans-Pacific Partnership; they will soon have another chance to complete what would be the world’s largest regional free-trade agreement. But, given serious concerns that the TPP will fail to consider important human-rights implications, that is no cause for celebration.

Managing The Public Trust: How To Make Natural Resource Funds Work For Citizens, Andrew Bauer, Perrine Toledano, Malan Rietveld

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Given their collective size – approximately $3.5 trillion in assets as of end-2013 and growing – and concerns about the motivations of their government owners, much has been written on natural resource funds (NRFs), their investments and global influence. However their impacts on governance and public financial accountability at home have received far less attention.

On the one hand, these funds can be used to serve the public interest, for example by covering budget deficits when resource revenues decline, saving for future generations, or helping to mitigate Dutch Disease through fiscal sterilization. On the other hand, they can undermine public …

A Discipline In Search Of Itself: Contemporary Challenges For Securities Law In Canada - 2013 Ivan C. Rand Memorial Lecture, Mary Condon

Articles & Book Chapters

Thank you very much to the University of New Brunswick's Faculty of Law for the invitation to deliver this lecture, and for the warm hospitality I received. I am honoured to deliver this lecture named in memory of Ivan C Rand. I know Justice Rand had a varied and brilliant legal career, having been an Attorney General, a Supreme Court judge, and dean of law. For these reasons I hope he would have sympathized with the enterprise I embark on this evening. That enterprise is to reflect on the disconnect between the way securities law is taught in Canadian law …

Santa Anna And His Black Eagle: The Origins Of Pari Passu?, Benjamin Chabot, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most debated issues in international finance is the meaning of the pari passu clause in sovereign bonds. The clause is ubiquitous; it is in almost every single foreign-law sovereign bond out there. Yet, almost no one seems to agree on its meaning. One way to cut the Gordian knot is to track down the origins of the clause. Modern lawyers may have simply copied the clause from the documents of their predecessors without understanding its meaning. But surely the people who first drafted the clause knew what it meant. Four enterprising students at Duke Law School may …

Towards More Sustainable And Less Crisis-Driven Financial Regulation, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A People’S History Of Collective Action Clauses, Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

For two decades, collective action clauses (CACs) have been part of the official-sector response to sovereign debt crisis, justified by claims that these clauses can help prevent bailouts and shift the burden of restructuring onto the private sector. Reform efforts in the 1990s and 2000s focused on CACs. So do efforts in the Eurozone today. CACs have even been suggested as the cure for the US municipal bond market. But bonds without CACs are still issued in major markets, so reformers feel obliged to explain why they know better. Over time, a narrative has emerged to justify pro-CAC reforms. It …

Obligations And Potential Liabilities Of Attorneys In Public And Private Offerings, William O. Fisher

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter examines issues that attorneys face when performing services for developing companies, with particular focus on private offerings and the initial public offering ("IPO"). In private and public offerings, both the securities laws and the issuer's interests mandate that the offering document present full and fair disclosure of the issuer's business and financial condition. In assisting an issuer, attorneys share this goal; and can face liability if they err when providing services in such a transaction.

'Quack Corporate Governance' As Traditional Chinese Medicine – The Securities Regulation Cannibalization Of China's Corporate Law And A State Regulator's Battle Against Party State Political Economic Power, Nicholas C. Howson

Articles

From the start of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) “corporatization ” project in the late 1980s, a Chinese corporate governance regime subject to increasingly enabling legal norms has been determined by mandatory regulations imposed by the PRC securities regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Indeed, the Chinese corporate law system has been cannibalized by all - encompassing securities regulation directed at corporate governance, at least for companies with listed stock. This Article traces the path of that sustained intervention and makes a case — wholly contrary to the “quack corporate governance” critique much aired in the United States …

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, …

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act And Particularity: Why Are Some Courts In An Alternate Universe?, Charles W. Murdock

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Virtues Of Private Securities Litigation: An Historic And Macroeconomic Perspective, Steven A. Ramirez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Janus Capital Group, Inc. V. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination Of The Supreme Court’S Evolution From Liberal To Reactionary In Rule 10b-5 Actions, Charles W. Murdock

Faculty Publications & Other Works

"Political" decisions such as Citizens United and National Federation of Independent Business (Obamacare) reflect the reactionary bent of several Supreme Court Justices. But this reactionary trend is discernible in other areas as well. With regard to Rule lOb-5, the Court has handed down a series of decisions that could be grouped into four trilogies. The Article examines the trend over the past forty years which has become increasingly conservative and, finally, reactionary.

The first trilogy was a liberal one, arguably overextending the scope of Rule lOb-5. This was followed by a conservative trilogy that put a brake on such extension, …

Leave Time For Trouble: The Limitations Periods Under The Federal Securities Laws, Michael J. Kaufman, John M. Wunderlich

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Ban Has Lifted: Now Is The Time To Change The Accredited-Investor Standard, Larissa Lee

Utah Law Review

Lifting the ban on general advertising and general solicitation will ultimately change how emerging companies receive funding. With greater access to previously untapped investors, more new businesses will be able to get on their feet and be successful. This success depends on the regulation of these offerings to ensure they are free of fraud and that investors maintain confidence in the market.

As the standard currently stands, it is likely that the removal of the ban will result in a regulatory gap, which may take advantage of several investors. The accredited investor standard should be changed to reflect not only …

Developments In Financial Services Regulation: A Comparative Perspective, Poonam Puri, Andrew Nichol

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Global Regulatory And Ethical Framework, Henry Ordower

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter reviews statutory and court sanctioned private regulatory frameworks affecting the creation of private equity (PE) funds and their primary activity of acquiring corporate enterprises. The chapter reviews U.S. legislation regulating securities, investment companies, and tender offers, state antitakeover legislation, state court decisions on hostile corporate takeovers and “poison pill” defenses, as well as European Union directives on takeovers and alternative investment fund managers. It concludes that regulation in the United States has shifted the balance of power in corporate acquisitions to incumbent management. The chapter also examines the diametrically opposed ethical views of PE funds as investment entities …

Lessons From Sec V. Citigroup: The Optimal Scope For Judicial Review Of Agency Consent Decrees, Dorothy S. Lund

Faculty Scholarship

On November 28, 2011, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan declined to approve a consent judgment between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citigroup. Because Citigroup had not admitted or denied the allegations in the consent decree, Judge Rakoff concluded that he was unable to make an informed judgment about the merits of the settlement. Judge Rakoffs decision has garnered serious criticism from legal observers and rekindled discussion about the scope of judicial review of agency consent decrees, which have become a valuable agency enforcement tool. …

Predatory Lending: What's Race Got To Do With It, Zainab A. Mehkeri

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

National And Coordinated Approaches To Securities Regulation: The Latest Initiatives In Historical Context, David L. Johnston, Kathleen Rockwell, Cristie Ford

All Faculty Publications

If securities regulation is any indication, few countries in the world take their federalism as seriously as Canada does. Notwithstanding an increasingly globalised world, the central reality of Canadian federalism will continue to influence the enactment and enforcement of effective capital markets regulation. In the latest development, on September 8, 2014 the federal government and four participating provinces announced draft legislation, including a new uniform provincial act and new federal legislation, to establish a new Cooperative Capital Markets Regulator (CCMR). Some provinces are strongly opposed, including Québec, which has promised to challenge the proposed regime on constitutional grounds. This chapter …

Financial Innovation And Flexible Regulation: Destabilizing The Regulatory State, Cristie Ford

All Faculty Publications

The author examines the regulatory failures leading up to the financial crisis, the rise of “flexible regulation,” the effects of financial innovation on regulation, and three different case studies that illuminate the drastic effects of that innovation: the Basel II banking regulations, the Canadian Asset-Backed Commercial Paper market, and the process for writing the Volcker Rule. Finally, she examines the underlying assumptions that should be re-examined in order to create more effective regulatory policies.

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance: Where Do Shareholders Really Stand?, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

This feature article in the Director Journal summarizes the findings from the report, "A Canadian Model of Corporate Governance: Insights from Canada's Leading Legal Practitioners," produced for the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research and the Institute of Corporate Directors (also available on SSRN).

In the report, interviews were conducted with 32 leading senior legal practitioners across Canada to opine on the fundamental principles that are driving the development of Canadian corporate governance. The report found that Canadian common law has made the process of considering stakeholders in the "best interests of the corporation" more overt, well beyond what is assumed …

The Sec Adds A New Weapon: How Does The New Admission Requirement Change The Landscape?, Paul Radvany

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Article will examine the SEC's revised settlement policy in the aftermath of Judge Rakoff's concerns about the SEC's longstanding "no admit, no deny" policy. In order to determine the import of the SEC's new settlement policy on the conduct of companies, as well as ongoing investigations and cases, this Article will also include analysis from lawyers who have advised their clients on the SEC's policy change.

Part II provides an overview of the SEC and its Enforcement Division, and describes the SEC's prosecutorial discretion. Part III examines Judge Rakoff's decisions in SEC v. Bank of Am. Corp.1 4 and …

The Pepperdine Model: Learn First-Then Practice, Robert A. Uhl, Judith Hale Norris

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On January 8, 2010, FINRA's Investor Education Foundation awarded Pepperdine University School of Law's Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution a grant of $250,000 to establish a comprehensive clinical education program in investor advocacy.