Securities Law Commons^™

An Uphill Battle: The Difficulty Of Deterring And Detecting Perpetrators Of Internet Stock Fraud, Byron D. Hittle

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Note argues that because of the limited resources of the SEC, the demanding requirements to prove misrepresentation, the current lack of cooperation between federal and state securities regulators, and a perverse admiration for fraud masterminds, illegal stock price manipulators will continue to profit from unsuspecting investors. Various measures to curb Internet fraud, however, are currently being pondered by industry experts. Among the most effective and realistic are, in order: increasing investor education and awareness, increasing the SEC's "firepower," increasing penalties and jail time for offenders, furthering coordination of federal and state efforts, and creating a "seal of approval" for …

Building A Strong Subnational Debt Market, Paul S. Maco

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

Decentralization of responsibility for finance and growing infrastructure needs are two trends that are expected to stimulate a growth in government borrowing at the sub-national level. Statistics for the first half of 2000 show a significant increase in sub-national debt volume, with global public finance, excluding Canada and the United States, more than doubling that of the first half of 1999.

Regulation S - Rules Governing Offers And Sales Made Outside The United States Without Registration Under The Securities Act Of 1933, Caroline Mary Rutherford Lee

LLM Theses and Essays

Underpinning a regulatory regime is a dichotomy between achieving certainty of outcome and achieving perceived fairness. While such a discussion may seem out of place in the context of a regulatory regime dealing with offshore offerings, it nonetheless serves to emphasize some of the considerations encountered in the following examination of Regulation S. Part Two of this thesis outlines the development of the disclosure regime that is evidenced in the United States Federal Securities Regulations and then goes on to examine how this regime, first established in the 1930s, dealt with the advent of globalization. Part Three then looks at …

The Insidious Remnants Of State Rules Respecting Capital Formation, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

As we move into the Twenty-First Century, state blue sky laws and regulations continue to govern a significant portion of the capital formation activities of our domestic businesses. As a result, state administrators, influenced by their historically informed preferences and local traditions, continue to play important roles when businesses attempt to access external capital sources.

Today, however, the effects of state blue sky laws, regulations, and administrators on capital formation are felt almost exclusively by small businesses. The capital formation activities of larger businesses generally have been freed from state control, most recently by the preemption contained in the National …

Establishing A Securities Arbitration Clinic: The Experience At Pace, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In the fall of1997 Pace University School of Law established one of the first law school clinics to provide student assistance to small investors who have disputes with their broker-dealers. What follows is a brief account of the clinic's educational objectives, an analysis of the initial organizational issues, and a report on the clinic's operation during its first two years. I am writing this in the hope that it will provide guidance and assistance to other law schools that contemplate establishing a securities arbitration clinic.

This is a nuts-and-bolts article written from the perspective of an experienced law professor who …

Dangerous Territoriality Of American Securities Law: A Proposal For An Integrated Global Securities Market, The , John G. Moon

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Market participants, academicians, and governmental officials debated how the United States government should structure multiple securities exchanges for several years before Congress mandated the establishment of the National Market System in the 1975 Amendments to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. During the intervening twenty-five years, recurring issues concerning the transparency, fragmentation, and fairness of the National Market System have remained unresolved. Recently, the globalization of securities markets and the development of Internet technology that permits cost-effective transnational securities trades and markets have exacerbated these issues. In fact, Internet technology makes the development of an integrated global securities market not …

The Overwhelming Case For Elimination Of The Integration Doctrine Under The Securities Act Of 1933, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"Click Here To Buy The Next Microsoft": The Penny Stock Rules, Online Microcap Fraud, And The Unwary Investor, Kevin C. Bartels

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Remarks, Golden Pen Award, Mary Beth Beazley

Scholarly Works

Professor Beazley, then President of the Legal Writing Institute, joins her colleagues in presenting the inaugural Golden Pen Award to Arthur Levitt, Chairman of the United States Securities Exchange Commission, for his leadership in requiring plain language in financial disclosure documents, in this transcript of the presentation of the award at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

Spawning The Sec, Henry Laurence

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

The "Possession Vs. Use" Debate In The Context Of Securities Trading By Traditional Insiders: Why Silence Can Never Be Golden, Donna M. Nagy

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Traditional insiders occupy a very special position in the scheme of federal securities regulation. However, in a misguided quest for a single answer to the possession vs. use debate, courts, commentators, and even the SEC have tended to marginalize the significant differences between traditional insiders and other securities traders who may possess material nonpublic information. In the aftermath of the circuit court decisions in United States v. Smith and Securities and Exchange Commission v. Adler, courts and the SEC should follow a categorical approach in addressing the possession vs. use question, and should recognize that silence can never be golden …

Markets As Monitors: A Proposal To Replace Class Actions With Exchanges As Securities Fraud Enforcers, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Fraud in the securities markets has been a focus of legislative reform in recent years. Corporations-especially those in the high-technology industry-have complained that they are being unfairly targeted by plaintiffs' lawyers in class action securities fraud lawsuits. The corporations' complaints led to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("Reform Act"). The Reform Act attempted to reduce meritless litigation against corporate issuers by erecting a series of procedural barriers to the filing of securities class actions. Plaintiffs' attorneys warned that the Reform Act and the resulting decrease in securities class actions would leave corporate fraud unchecked and deprive defrauded …

Securities Arbitration: A Clinical Experiment, Constantine N. Katsoris

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article discusses the use of non-attorneys in representing such clients, as well as pro se representation by such claimants. It then describes the efforts of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to ensure that such claimants have access to adequate and effective representation through the use of law school clinics. Finally, this Article raises numerous issues that must be considered before establishing such clinics, and concludes that proper planning and adjustment is necessary for a successful clinical program.

Judicial Reliance On Regulatory Interpretations In Sec No-Action Letters: Current Problems And A Proposed Framework, Donna M. Nagy

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Judicial descriptions of SEC no-action letters have run the gamut from law, to orders, to rulings, to informal opinions, to prosecutorial decisions. This judicial failure to characterize no-action letters consistently is symptomatic of a more fundamental problem: many courts treat informal regulatory interpretations in no-action letters as interchangeable with formal and official regulatory interpretations that the full Commission has promulgated. Consequently, courts often defer automatically to the regulatory interpretations in no-action letters. In other words, many courts accept no-action letter authority as definitive interpretations of the federal securities statutes and SEC rules and regulations without independently analyzing the particular regulatory …

United States V. O'Hagan: Agency Law And Justice Powell's Legacy For The Law Of Insider Trading, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

The law of insider trading is judicially created; no statutory provision explicitly prohibits trading on the basis of material, non-public information. The Supreme Court's insider trading jurisprudence was forged, in large part, by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. His opinions for the Court in United States v. Chiarella and SEC v. Dirks were, until recently, the Supreme Court's only pronouncements on the law of insider trading. Those decisions established the elements of the classical theory of insider trading under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"). Under this theory, corporate insiders and their tippees who …

Blue Sky Laws And The Recent Congressional Preemption Failure, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Laws regarding the sale of securities may be understood as responses to perceived bargaining failures. The most extreme examples of these bargaining failures are seen in instances in which investors are intentionally misled or defrauded regarding the quality of the investments they receive for their money. Even without the presence of such culpability, however, bargaining failures are likely anytime the trading parties lack sufficient, accurate information necessary to effect value-enhancing trades. When that occurs in trades for capital, the parties to the transaction are misinformed respecting the trade, expectations are not protected, and that precious commodity, capital, may be turned …

Securities Market And Securities Regulations In China, Fengxia Dai

LLM Theses and Essays

China is a large developing country with a socialist ideology that is currently undergoing a period of reform and transformation. In December 1990, China opened its first national securities market - the Shanghai Securities Exchange. This was soon followed in November 1991 by the first special shares denominated in foreign currencies and sold only to overseas investors. These important steps in the development of China’s securities industry indicate commitment by Chinese authorities to the two key components of the nation’s economic reform program - economic systemic reform, and opening to the outside world. China’s securities market and securities regulations contain …

Reflections On Executive Compensation And A Modest Proposal For (Further) Reform, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

No abstract provided.

Resales Of Securities Under The Securities Act Of 1933, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article explains the failings of the Securities and Exchange Commission in dealing with resales of securities and suggests an appropriate statutory and policy framework for a principled approach to the matter. Part I of this article is an introduction to this issue. Part II of this Article describes the present situation regarding the law of resales. Part III of this Article offers a series of broad observations about resales under the 1933 Act, suggests an economic analysis for the registration provisions of the 1933 Act, and presents some more specific recommendations concerning resale rules.

The Mandatory Disclosure System And Foreign Firms: Securities Regulation In The Apec Countries., Joel Seligman

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines the disclosure requirements for foreign and domestic securities imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, paying special attention to the balance between investor protection and the free flow of capital internationally. As the world economy becomes increasingly global, foreign issuers and their governments, who in the past have had to meet more stringent requirements to issue their securities in the United States, are pushing for less restrictive treatment. This Article describes the progress that has been made towards this end.

The Sec's Unfinished Soft Information Revolution, Joel Seligman

Scholarship@WashULaw

The transformation of the Securities and Exchange Commission's mandatory disclosure system represents the single most important development in the agency's greater than sixty years' experience administering disclosure requirements. Since the early 1970s, the SEC has shifted its emphasis from historical or "hard" information to its current emphasis on forward-looking information. This transformation can be termed the "soft information revolution" in the SEC's mandatory disclosure system. In terms of investor protection, the SEC's emphasis on forward-looking information has significantly improved the quality of what is mandatorily disclosed.

The Misappropriation Theory Of Insider Trading: Its Past, Present, And Future, Troy Cichos

Seattle University Law Review

In this Comment, I discuss the evolution and current application of the misappropriation theory of insider trading and argue that it simply strays too far from the fraud tenets of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. A thorough understanding of the misappropriation theory is possible only if one understands how it diverges from the classic theory of insider trading. Therefore, in Section II, I discuss the evolution and present doctrine of classic insider trading. The discussion in this Section focuses on major cases in the development of this theory. Section III presents the misappropriation theory of insider trading. Section III focuses …

The Integration Of Securities Offerings: A Proposed Formula That Fosters The Policies Of Securities Regulation, Cheryl L. Wade

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Securities Act of 1933 ("1933 Act" or "the Act") generally requires the filing of a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") prior to the offer or sale of any security and prohibits the sale of any security prior to the effective date of the registration statement. For the prospective issuer of securities, the preparation and filing of this registration statement can be costly and time-consuming. To prevent the hampering of commerce that results from unnecessary registration, the 1933 Act provides a variety of exemptions from registration that relieve issuers of the cost and delay …

The Sec And The Future Of Corporate Governance, Mark J. Loewenstein

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Bespeaks Caution Doctrine: Revisiting The Application Of Federal Securities Law To Opinions And Estimates, Royce De R. Barondes

Faculty Publications

Disclosure of estimates and opinions, which are often referred to as ‘soft information,‘ has presented a number of difficult issues to courts, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and companies issuing offering materials or required to file periodic reports with the SEC. Although this type of information often consists of projections, historical financial statements also include this type of information to varying degrees. For example, a bank's statement of financial position requires specification of loan loss reserves and is therefore dependent on an assessment of future events (the timing and extent of repayment). Similarly, determination of the timing of a …

Securities Regulation: Challenges In The Decades Ahead, J. William Hicks

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reinventing The Outside Director: An Agenda For Institutional Investors, Ronald J. Gilson, Reinier Kraakman

Faculty Scholarship

Managerialist rhetoric puts the institutional investor between a rock and a hard place. The institutional investor is depicted as a paper colossus, alternatively greedy and mindless, but in all events a less important corporate constituency than that other kind of investor, the "real" shareholder. The unspoken corollary is that, regardless of the institution's investment strategy, its interests may appropriately be ignored.

An institution that trades stock frequently is considered a short-term shareholder without a stake in the future of the corporation. According to the familiar argument, the short-term shareholder has no more legitimate claim on management's attention than does a …

Arbitration Of Securities Disputes: Rodriguez And New Arbitration Rules Leave Investors Holding A Mixed Bag, William C. Hermann

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Capital Markets In Transition: A Response To New Sec Rule 144a, Kellye Y. Testy

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rationalizing The Disclosure Process: The Summary Annual Report, J. Robert Brown Jr., Stephen M. Detore

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In 1986 the staff of the Division of Corporate Finance of the SEC issued two letters approving the use of a summary annual report. These letters have acceded to management a great amount of discretion in connection with the annual report. The summary annual report costs less to produce than the con- ventional annual report and a decision about its use may en- courage a re-examination of the shareholder communication process. However, uncertainty exists over whether the summary annual report will implicate concerns under the securities laws.