Securities Law Commons^™

“A Plain Denial”: Reclaiming Equal Protection In American Juvenile Law, Addie C. Rolnick, David S. Tanenhaus, Justin Iverson, Danielle L. Silvestri

Seattle University Law Review

Juvenile courts are based on the premise that children are different from adults and should therefore be treated differently. Children may be treated more informally by courts, punished for different purposes, and brought before the court for different behaviors. Since In re Gault, the Supreme Court has been clear that there are limits to how different juvenile courts can be. Juveniles are entitled to many of the same procedural protections as adult criminal defendants, although the Court has preserved some procedural differences where it has determined that their benefit is outweighed by the need to preserve the informality, flexibility, …

Mandating Fluoride: A Constitutional Exercise Of Police Power, Anita Jahangiri

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses the ongoing debate over fluoridation: the regulation of fluoride levels in public water systems. Extensive research indicates fluoridation, when regulated at the recommended concentration, is both safe and highly effective in preventing dental caries. Better known as cavities, dental caries is a preventable yet widespread health issue that disproportionately affects low-income populations. Reducing dental health disparities among economic classes is a pressing public health issue. Fluoridation is not merely a policy option, but a critical, proven tool to address such disparities and uphold the collective welfare of Washingtonians. This Note focuses on fluoridation as a public health …

Neurodiversity In The Courtroom: Expanding Jury Service Accessibility Beyond Physical Disability, Samantha L. Mabe

Seattle University Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act has required equal access to jury service for decades; however, efforts to accommodate jurors with disabilities have been slow to develop beyond some minor accommodations for physical disabilities. While neurodivergent people frequently struggle to navigate a world catered toward neurotypical people, jury service remains inaccessible for many neurodivergent people who need accommodations to attend trial and engage in jury deliberations. If courts and advocates do not consider how to develop accommodations to secure the service of neurodivergent jurors, they will miss out on the unique skillsets that neurodivergent people can bring to resolving disputes.

Disabled …

Should We Watch The Watcher Or The Watched? The Transparency Debate In Auditor Regulation, Sarah Williams

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interest Rates, Venture Capital, & Financial Stability, Hilary J. Allen

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

As central banks tightened interest rates during 2022 and 2023, important debates arose regarding the relationship between monetary policy and financial stability. This Article illuminates one path through which the prolonged period of accommodative monetary policy from 2009-2021 impacted financial stability: it traces how easy money and yield-seeking behavior in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 pandemic led to a bubble in the venture capital industry, which in turn spawned a crypto bubble as well as a run on the VC-favored Silicon Valley Bank. This Article uses this account to illustrate the importance of proactive financial regulation …

Unflexed Muscle: Sec Enforcement And Officer Sox Section 302 Certifications, Marc I. Steinberg, A.B. Steinberg

University of Miami Law Review

This Article represents the first work to analyze the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) neglect in its enforcement of the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO) Sarbanes-Oxley certification requirement. The Article addresses the appropriate construction of the statute’s reach, the enforcement proceedings instituted by the SEC under this provision, and the Commission’s failure to fulfill its legislative directive to adequately enforce this statute and Rule 13a-14 promulgated thereunder. In its implementation of the CEO and CFO certification requirement, the SEC has brought relatively few enforcement actions during over a two-decade period. Its enforcement with respect to CEOs …

Contracting For Consumer Trade Compliance, Christine Abely

Law Faculty Scholarship

Export compliance is becoming increasingly important for parties required to abide by U.S. law, including many online sellers of consumer products. These retailers' contractual terms with their customers set forth a number of provisions governing the relationship between them, including those which deal with arbitration, indemnification, disclaimer of warranties, and other issues. Many such agreements also purport to create obligations on the part of the consumer as to export control and sanctions compliance relative to the products they purchase. These contract provisions attempt to do so, however, in often markedly different ways, and with language that may leave notable gaps …

Assessing Market Efficiency In Corporate And Securities Litigation, Charles Korsmo, Minor Myers

Indiana Law Journal

In recent decades, courts have increasingly looked to trading prices as evidence—often conclusive evidence—in high-stakes corporate law disputes over a company’s fair value. This development has been especially dramatic, and consequential, in Delaware. Where a stock trades in an efficient market, the logic goes, the prevailing trading price can be used to resolve any disputed issue of valuation. But this expedient comes with an unavoidable question: When is a market “sufficiently efficient” for a court to rely on it as a measure of value?

 Federal courts have long experience evaluating the relative efficiency of trading markets in the context of …

The Gamification Of Banking, Colleen Baker, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Gamification is coming to banking. This phenomenon is already gain-ing ground in advertising, healthcare, manufacturing, and, more recently, with the GameStop and AMC meme stock saga in securities trading. The idea behind gamification is to make transactions seem fun, playful, and even casino-like in order to elicit habit-forming, addictive-like effects with consumers. This Article argues that the rise of financial technology (“fintech”) firms and their ever-growing business relationships with incumbent financial institutions has created the necessary conditions for gamification to take hold in the banking sector. In order to explore this observation, we undertake a study of current examples of …

The Sec Proposed Cybersecurity Infrastructure Rules And New Disclosure Requirements, Neal F. Newman, Lawrence J. Trautman, Brian Elzweig

Faculty Scholarship

In addition to regulation of securities market issuers, the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is also responsible for regulation of those entities that provide the networks, either electronic or physical, that enable the functioning of our securities markets. On February 9, 2022, the Commission published a Release for Cybersecurity Risk Management for Investment Advisers, Registered Investment Companies, and Business Development Companies containing proposals that, if adopted, would establish a new cybersecurity incident reporting and disclosure regime and require registered investment advisers (“advisers”) and investment companies (“funds”) to implement policies and procedures designed to address cyber risks. The comment period for …

Is Confidential Supervisory Information Material To Investors? Evaluating The Conflict Between Banking And Securities Law, Peter Conti-Brown, Patrick M. Corrigan, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Law & Economics Working Papers

A central goal of modern US securities law is the transparency of corporate information through mandatory public disclosures. This goal is in tension with a central goal of banking law, namely, the practice of preserving opacity of the information exchanged between banks and bank supervisors to ensure the safety and soundness of individual banks and the entire banking system. That informational opacity in banking known as "confidential supervisory information" (CSI) applies equally to all banks, whether or not they sell securities subject to public disclosure requirements. The disclosure of CSI is prohibited by law and practice, with dire consequences for …

Court Appointed Monitorships: Effective Remedy Or Modern Misstep?, Jean Joun

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

When a corporate entity or organization violates the law, there are several remedies the courts may enforce against the bad actor. Most common are damages—both compensatory and punitive—and injunctive relief. The class of injunctive relief that most are familiar with is the kind that restrains the bad actor from a conduct or behavior. However, courts in certain instances may decide, either on their own volition or after being asked to consider such a remedy by a prosecuting entity, to appoint a compliance monitor with the function of ensuring that the bad actor continues traversing a legally sound path. Although court-ordered …

Getting It Just Right: The Goldilocks Level Of Securities Regulation, David Nows

Nevada Law Journal

Across the world, developed economies use roughly the same framework to regulate entrepreneurial ventures raising capital. The minor differences in how developed countries regulate securities for emerging businesses lie primarily in their legal thresholds for fundraising caps, disclosure requirements, and the criteria for accredited investors. This uniform regulatory framework persists despite significant empirical evidence that the citizens of developed countries vary widely in their desire to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, their perceptions of the number and quality of entrepreneurial opportunities available to them, and their perceptions of their own ability to succeed in entrepreneurship. This Article advocates for a new approach …

Crypto Regulation In The Time Of Trump, Lawrence J. Trautman

Michigan Technology Law Review

Donald Trump’s election as president during November 2024 results in perhaps the most dramatic philosophical change in approach to governmental regulation in over ninety years. The Great Depression of the 1930s created a need for regulatory reform and resulted in the advent of such new regulatory frameworks as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It has been the purpose of the SEC to create and nurture efficient securities markets enabling vibrant capital formation while preventing fraud upon the investing public. At issue is the contrast between the regulatory regime in place since 1933-34 and the Trump Administration’s desire to …

Do Representative Payments Matter?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick, Colton Cronin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For many decades, courts have awarded the representative plaintiffs who bring class actions an extra payment when the actions recover something for the class. It has long been thought that the payments are necessary to induce a class member to step forward and serve as a representative, and, without them, many class actions would go away. Indeed, we show that the payments had become all but ubiquitous in non-securities class actions. In 2020, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit became the only circuit to hold the payments unlawful. We test whether the Eleventh Circuit's decision …

Initial Coin Offerings As An Alternative Method For Raising Capital: Legal Considerations And Regulatory Solutions In Indonesia, Juwita Patty Pasaribu, Febby Mutiara Nelson, Topo Santoso, Fransiska Ari

Indonesia Law Review

Blockchain technology has been used in various sectors, notably in facilitating crypto asset transactions, specifically for processing an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or token sales that were first introduced in 2013. In Indonesia, it can be observed that there are several legal issues in the execution that expose them to potential misuse in the ICO transaction, leading to criminal activities. Additionally, Indonesia was ranked as the second-highest country in the world to experience crypto asset fraud schemes in 2019. To address legal issues related to ICO, this study aims to provide a comprehensive legal assessment of ICO as a modern …

Praktik Ethical Hacking Untuk Menjamin Keamanan Sistem Sebagai Upaya Mewujudkan Keamanan Dan Kerahasiaan Data Pribadi: Studi Komparasi Pengaturan Indonesia Dan Kanada, Amaraduhita Laksmi Prabhaswari, Henny Marlyna, Ayu Galuh Anggraini

Technology and Economics Law Journal

In the digital era that is increasingly integrated with electronic systems and technology, issues related to the security and confidentiality of personal data have become a crucial issue, especially in the midst of the increasing number of cyber attacks. The urgency of this protection is increasingly urgent along with the complex use of technology by PSE, both public and private. The practice of ethical hacking by contract based or policy-based emerged as a proactive effort in identifying and addressing security gaps in a system. Although in Canada this practice has been recognized as part of national security policy (RVDP), Indonesia …

Regulating Algorithmic Accountability In Financial Advising: Rethinking The Sec’S Ai Proposal, Chen Wang

Buffalo Law Review

As artificial intelligence increasingly reshapes financial advising, the SEC has proposed new rules requiring brokerdealers and investment advisers to eliminate or neutralize conflicts of interest arising from AI use. This Article critically assesses the proposal’s scope, rationale, and feasibility, contending that its sweeping definitions and prescriptive mandates risk overregulation and conflict with the SEC’s longstanding disclosure-based regulatory approach. Drawing on case law, fiduciary duties, Regulation Best Interest, and existing antifraud provisions, this Article argues that the current legal framework, grounded in disclosure and informed consent, remains sufficient to manage AI related conflicts. It cautions against imposing categorical conflict elimination requirements …

Regulatory Influence In The Financial Markets Revisited, Jessica E. Lees

BYU Law Review

Historically, the financial markets of the United States and their corresponding regulatory scheme wielded unique influence throughout the globe. But this influence is waning, due largely to the centralization of financial services rulemaking within the European Union and the growth of global emerging markets. It is thus an important time to consider the circumstances under which a jurisdiction may assume and exercise the global regulatory influence traditionally wielded by the U.S. regime.

This Article develops a new framework to specifically address regulatory influence within global financial regulation and financial markets more broadly, looking beyond market size to establish a more …

The Collection Problem: How The Circuit Split On Pleading Standards In Securities Fraud Claims Undermines Federal Regulatory Goals, Lucas Immer

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The Great Depression is generally recognized as the greatest economic calamity in United States history. One of the Great Depression’s many causes was reckless financial speculation driven in part by financial fraud. In response to the crisis, Congress passed the 1934 Securities Exchange Act (“the Exchange Act”), which courts have long held creates a private right of action for plaintiffs who experience an economic loss due to reliance on a material misstatement surrounding the purchase or sale of a security. A prima facie claim for securities fraud under the Exchange Act requires a showing of scienter, defined as “a …

Can The Law Protect My Craft? How Gaps In Copyright Of Knitting Patterns Symbolize A Greater Struggle For Protecting Traditionally Feminine Forms Of Intellectual Property, Kysa Walzer

Seattle University Law Review

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the application of intel-lectual property rights within the context of copyright protection of knit-ting patterns. The article will discuss the underutilization of copyright pro-tection for knitters and crafters and its larger impact upon craft and indus-try traditionally comprised of women. Part I introduces knitting patterns and a short history of copyright protections. Part II discusses the specific areas within knitting patterns and the knitting community which give rise to legal grey areas for copyright protection. Part III discusses the larger implications of copyright and intellectual property in spaces where women traditionally make …

A New Exclusionary Rule To Protect Bodily Integrity And Discourage Pretext Stops, Josephine Ross

Seattle University Law Review

The author proposes a novel state-level exclusionary rule to reduce racial profiling and protect bodily autonomy during police encounters. The current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence fails to deter pretextual stops and frisks because the exclusionary rule often turns on officer fault and "good faith," allowing racially motivated practices to go unchecked. As federal rollbacks on diversity and data collection hinder efforts to track racial bias, the author argues for a statutory evidentiary rule that automatically excludes drug evidence found during (1) traffic stops, (2) pat-downs for weapons, and (3) consent searches, regardless of an officer’s intent or the legality of the …

Navahine V. HawaiʻI Dept. Of Transportation: The Keiki Will Lead Us, Catherine Smith

Seattle University Law Review

The author analyzes the landmark case Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, which culminated in the world’s first constitutional climate settlement. Catherine Smith, serving as an expert for the youth plaintiffs, situates the case within Hawaiʻi’s legal tradition of prioritizing children’s rights and intergenerational equity. She explores the evolution of children’s constitutional protections, contrasting Hawaiʻi’s progressive jurisprudence with the dominant adult-centric legal framework on the mainland. She critiques four recurring analytical missteps in U.S. courts that marginalize children’s interests and highlights Hawaiʻi’s public trust doctrine and cultural values, such as the Aloha Spirit, as models for addressing climate-related harms. …

Constitutional Futurism As Pedagogy, Jeremiah Chin

Seattle University Law Review

Constitutional Law has transformed from a course on history to a discussion of current events. Cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo reveal that the study of constitutional law is not a static, or even linear, discussion of constitutional text and history. Law is a shifting, changing enterprise that reflects social constructions of power, authority, and identity. How do we teach, learn, and understand constitutional law that is so laden with history, riddled with theories of consistency and adherence to precedent, but ultimately subject …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 48 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Keynote Address: Community Over Constitution, Riddhi Mukhopadhyay

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, Riddhi Mukhopadhyay challenges the veneration of the U.S. Constitution by highlighting its origins in exclusion and its continued failure to protect marginalized communities. Drawing from her experience in civil legal aid and gender justice, she argues that the Constitution was drafted to consolidate power among white, wealthy men and continues to reflect that legacy through racial, gender, and class-based inequities. While acknowledging the significance of constitutional amendments and landmark cases, Mukhopadhyay emphasizes that meaningful change has always come from community-led action, not top-down reform. Additionally, Mukhopadhyay calls on lawyers and legal advocates to center community, practice …

The Lost Child: A Critique On Transracial Adoption Rhetoric, Hallie Conyers-Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

Transracial adoption in the United States reflects a deeply rooted history of colonialism, cultural assimilation, and racial hierarchy, masked by rhetoric focused on the “best interest of the child.” The author critiques that rhetoric and traces how adoption practices and policies, both domestic and international, have evolved to reinforce systemic inequities. Through historical analysis of the forced adoption of Native American, Black, and Asian children, it reveals how the best interest standard has been wielded not to protect children but to uphold political and racial ideologies. The author argues that the prevailing adoption framework relies on child-saving and color-blind narratives …

A Global Reconstruction: Black Internationalism And The Human Rights Regime, Britta Redwood

Seattle University Law Review

Black American advocates for civil, political, and economic rights have long taken an internationalist approach and fostered connections with international organizations and transnational movements. This engagement has also been a generative force and played role in shaping international law. Beginning in the early years of the twentieth century, Black intellectuals and leaders, spearheaded by the NAACP and the UNIA, focused on human rights as a means for addressing and repairing the harms wrought by slavery, Jim Crow, and racism. From the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention, and the drafting of …

The Gap: Addressing The Missing Piece In HawaiʻI’S Anti-Discrimination Laws On Credit And Lending, Wendy Mun

Seattle University Law Review

This author addresses the significant gap in Hawaiʻi’s anti-discrimination laws, specifically the lack of explicit protections for LGBTQ+ individuals against credit and lending discrimination. Although federal laws like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and recent interpretations by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) extend some protections, they remain vulnerable to shifting federal priorities and interpretations. The author explores how other states, particularly California and Washington, have enacted robust statutory protections that clearly prohibit credit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They argue that Hawaiʻi, despite its large LGBTQ+ population, must amend its credit protection laws to reflect …