Securities Law Commons^™

The Facebook Status That Sparked An Sec Investigation: Regulation Fair Disclosure And The Growth Of Social Media, Alyssa Wanser

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Comparative Study Of Monitoring Of Management In German And U.S. Corporations After Sarbanes-Oxley: Where Are The German Enrons, Worldcoms, And Tycos?, Florian Stamm

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Securities Laws As Foreign Policy, Karen E. Woody

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Proxy Plumbing Release Revisited And The Need For Version 2.0, J. Robert Brown Jr.

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Congress assigned the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) responsibility over the proxy process in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Act gave little guidance but left the Commission with broad authority to adopt rules that were “necessary or appropriate in the public interest or for the protection of investors.” The Commission found itself thrown into the middle of a complex regulatory environment already inhabited by other decision makers. State law governed the substantive rights of shareholders, determining who could vote, the matters subject to their approval, and the percentages needed for adoption. Stock exchanges regulated the relationship …

Is The Independent Director Model Broken?, Roberta S. Karmel

Seattle University Law Review

At common law, an interested director was barred from participating in corporate decisions in which he had an interest, and therefore “dis-interested” directors became desirable. This concept of the disinterested director developed into the model of an “independent director” and was advocated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and court decisions as a general ideal in a variety of situations. This Article explores doubts regarding the model of an “independent director” and suggests that director expertise may be more important that director independence. The Article then discusses shareholder primacy and sets forth alternatives to the shareholder primacy theory of the …

Proposed Crowdfunding Regulations Under The Jobs Act: Please, Sec, Revise Your Proposed Regulations In Order To Promote Small Business Capital Formation, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Advocacy

The Jobs Act was enacted to promote efficient access to external capital by small businesses. Title III of the Jobs Act offers small businesses the chance of efficient financial intermediation through crowdfunding. The crowdfunding exemption is not self-executing but, instead, requires regulatory implementation by the SEC.

The Commission’s first iteration of its crowdfunding rules fails to offer small businesses efficient access to external capital. Principally, this is because the proposed crowdfunding rules: (1) require excessive disclosures, especially regarding smaller crowdfunding offerings; (2) fail to offer small businesses relying on the crowdfunding exemption two-way safe harbor integration protection; and (3) fail …

Unfinished Business: Dodd-Frank's Whistleblower Anti-Retaliation Protections Fall Short For Private Companies And Their Employees, Chelsea Hunt Overhuls

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”) revolutionized the world of securities law whistleblowing. It encouraged employees to reveal corporate fraud by providing federal anti-retaliation protection to incentivize such reports. Securities law whistleblowing was transformed a second time in 2010 when Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”). Under Dodd-Frank, employees that report information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) are not only provided federal anti-retaliation protections but also are eligible for a hefty bounty. Two major differences separate these statutes: (1) SOX is limited to employees of companies who are subject to the reporting …

Broker-Dealers, Institutional Investors, And Fiduciary Duty: Much Ado About Nothing, Lin (Lynn) Bai

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Under the mandate of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the SEC is soliciting public opinions on whether broker-dealers should be subject to a fiduciary duty when advising retail and institutional investors. This paper focuses on the advisability of such a proposal for institutional investors. It shows that (1) a fiduciary duty could potentially enhance broker-dealers’ standard of conduct for only a subset of institutional investors who are well capitalized, capable of assessing risks independently, and acknowledge in writing their non-reliance on broker-dealers’ advice. Thus, the benefit of fiduciary duty is much narrower than what its …

Fee-Shifting Bylaw And Charter Provisions: Can They Apply In Federal Court? – The Case For Preemption, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In the first months after a decision of the Delaware Supreme Court upholding a fee-shifting bylaw under which the unsuccessful plaintiff shareholder was required to reimburse all defendants for their legal and other expenses in the litigation, some 24 public companies adopted a similar provision – either by means of a board-adopted bylaw or by placing such a provision in their certificate of incorporation (in the case of companies undergoing an IPO). In effect, private ordering is introducing a one-sided version of the “loser pays” rules. Indeed, as drafted, these provisions typically require a plaintiff who is not completely successful …

High-Frequency Trading: A Regulatory Strategy, Charles R. Korsmo

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past several years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has settled the vast majority of the cases it has brought. Some people have suggested, however, that settlements by public agencies such as the SEC should be scrutinized more closely. For instance, in a series of recent opinions, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York has “question[ed] the wisdom” of the SEC’s well-established practice of permitting defendants to enter into consent judgments while neither admitting nor denying the allegations. During the past two years, the SEC has implemented new policies that have altered its …

Taking Section 10(B) Seriously: Criminal Enforcement Of Sec Rules, Steve Thel

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has determined the scope of federal securities laws in a series of cases in which it has read section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act as either prohibiting certain misconduct or authorizing the SEC to regulate that conduct and only that conduct. Judging by the language, structure and history of the Exchange Act, the Court’s reading is wrong. Section 10(b) does not prohibit anything, and it neither grants the SEC rulemaking power nor limits the rulemaking power granted to the SEC elsewhere in the Exchange Act. Instead, section 10(b) simply triggers criminal sanctions for certain rule violations. …

Out Of The Shadows: Requiring Strategic Management Disclosure, Nadelle Grossman

West Virginia Law Review

Under federal securities laws and regulations, public companies must disclose to investors a considerable amount of information about their risk management processes to limit losses. In contrast, these companies need not disclose virtually anything about their strategic management processes to gen- erate gains. This mismatch in disclosure gives investors a distorted sense of firm processes to create value, undermining the federal securities laws' central purpose of creating informed investors. It also signals that risk management processes, which are cast in disclosure sunlight, are more important to firm success than strategic management processes, which remain in the shadows. To address these …

Securities Violations In 140 Characters Or Less: Social Media And Its Growing Impact On The Securities Industry, Kevin Etzel

Touro Law Review

As social media continues its rapid ascent, the law must be able to keep pace. The securities industry is where one area that must keep pace. This Comment demonstrates the drastic effects, both positive and negative, that social media has on securities regulation.

In Search Of Safe Harbor: Suggestions For The New Rule 506(C), Usha Rodrigues

Scholarly Works

I devote most of this essay to exploring how, exactly, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) should go about providing guidelines to implement the statutory requirement that issuers have a reasonable belief that a purchaser is accredited. The SEC has proposed rules, but these rules merely restate what Congress has already required, thus sidestepping Congress’s direction that the agency itself articulate some verification methods. Taking the SEC’s decidedly amorphous proposal to task, I recommend that the SEC offer two nonexclusive safe harbors for issuers to guide them in determining whether a natural person is an accredited investor. The paragraphs below …

There's A New Sheriff In Town - Will The New Sec Chairman Allow Issuers Of American Depository Receipts To Use International Accounting Standards To Satisfy Listing Requirements On U.S. Exchanges?, Joseph J.M. Orabona

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Business Roundtable V. Securities And Exchange Commission: The Sec's First Big Shot At Proxy Access In The Shadow Of Dodd-Frank, Raymond E. Areshenko

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

When The Government Attempts To Change The Board, Investors Should Know, William O. Fisher

Pepperdine Law Review

In 2008 and 2009, the federal government effectively hired and fired directors at American International Group and Bank of America, without any securities filing of the sort that would have been required had a private market actor attempted to change the boards at those companies. The fact that current law allows the government to secretly reconstitute the governing bodies of multibillion-dollar, publicly traded companies is cause for concern, for who controls the board controls the company. This Article argues that, just as securities filings alert investors when private parties attempt board change, a new required filing should inform investors when …

The Long Road Back: Business Roundtable And The Future Of Sec Rulemaking, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has faced a number of challenges in the last few years. Judge Rakoff’s decision in Citigroup, the Madoff scandal, and the Business Roundtable decision are just a few of the developments that have dealt lasting damage to the SEC’s reputation. Critics have scrutinized the agency’s decisionmaking on multiple fronts—from its enforcement policy to the quality of its rulemaking—and the SEC has largely come up short in the analysis. The once-revered top cop of the securities markets has taken a hit, and it is unclear whether it can recover. The Business Roundtable decision …

Alternatives For Small Business Raising Capital Under The Securities Act Of 1933, David H. Barber

Pepperdine Law Review

The problems encountered by the business community in raising capital for new or small businesses has spurned implementation of responsive policy and regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of input from a series of nationwide small business hearings, the S.E.C. has recently demonstrated its commitment to aiding capital raising needs. This was accomplished by creating an Office of Small Business Policy to respond to the effects of major new changes to the Securities Act of 1933 which seek to facilitate the process of capitalization of small business. Professor David H. Barber, of Brigham Young University's J. …

Curbing Broker-Dealers' Abusive Sales Practices: Does Professor Jensen's Integrity Framework Offer A Better Approach?, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Retail investors, particularly senior citizens, need competent and careful investment advice more than ever before. Many must rely on the services provided by investment advice providers, including broker-dealers. Regulators have sounded the alarm about sales of risky, complex products to retail customers in search of better returns, especially senior citizens and retirees. Both the SEC and FINRA have identified abusive broker-dealer sales practices as priorities in their examinations of broker-dealers and have brought numerous enforcement actions against broker-dealers for sales practices that harm retail investors. These enforcement actions frequently allege both failures of the firms’ due diligence processes to assure …

Resurrecting Court Deference To The Securities And Exchange Commission: Definition Of “Security”, Steven J. Cleveland

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crowdfunding Securities, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

A new federal statute authorizes the online "crowdfunding" of securities, a new idea based on the concept of "reward" crowdfunding practiced on Kickstarter and other websites. This method of selling securities had previously been banned by federal securities law but the new CROWDFUND Act overturns that prohibition.

This Article introduces the CROWDFUND Act and explains that it can be expected to have two primary effects on securities law and capital markets. First, it will liberate startup companies to use peer networks and the Internet to obtain modest amounts of capital at low cost. Second, it will help democratize the market …

Keep It Light, Chairman White: Sec Rulemaking Under The Crowdfund Act, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Title III of the JOBS Act, known as the CROWDFUND Act, authorizes the “crowdfunding” of securities, defined as raising capital online from many investors, each of whom contributes only a small amount. The Act was signed into law in April 2012, and will go into effect once the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) promulgates rules and regulations to govern the new marketplace for crowdfunded securities. This Essay offers friendly advice to the SEC as to how to exercise its rulemaking authority in a manner that will enable the Act to achieve its goals of creating an ultralow-cost method for raising …

Revising Federal Securityholder Communication Rules To Respond To Pension Funds' Increasing Market Presence, Kenneth R. Lehman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Collateral Participant Liability Under State Securities Laws, Douglas M. Branson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Conflicts: International Tender And Exchange Offers In The 1990s, John C. Maguire

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Class Action Lawsuits As A Restructuring Technique, Bryant B. Edwards, Jeffrey A. Herbst, Selina K. Hewitt

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Corporate Governance: Some Unasked Questions A Personal Commentary, Henry Lesser

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Marc I. Steinberg

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.