Transnational Law Commons^™

A Trending Use Of Insulation And A Temporary Way Out, 4 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 51 (2016), Jennifer Leung

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

In order to understand the constitutionality of the SEC’s administrative process, Part II of this Article begins with a history of Article II’s Appointments Clause. Part III describes the competing theories resulting from a circuit split, specifically Hill v. Securities & Exchange Commission and Bebo v. Securities Exchange Commission. Part IV of this Article then evaluates the impact of the Appointments Clause on the Dodd-Frank Act and discusses the consequences of raising meritless constitutional questions that jeopardize the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act. Subsection IV.A. explains the exhaustion doctrine and subsection IV.B. explores Congress’s intent of implementing the Dodd-Frank Act, …

Treating The New European Disease Of Consumer Debt In A Post-Communist State: The Groundbreaking New Russian Personal Insolvency Law, 41 Brook. J. Int'l L. 655 (2016), Jason J. Kilborn

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the tumultuous transition from restrictive Communism to the debt-fueled consumer economy of modern Russia. In particular, it surveys Russia’s legal response to severe debt distress, situating it in the context of nearly one thousand years of historical development. Effective 1 October 2015, Russia finally joined most of its European neighbors in adopting a personal bankruptcy law, with characteristics that reflect both evolving international best practices and a series of lessons not learned. This article offers the first detailed exposition in English of the two steps forward represented by this new law, as well as an evaluation of …

Bank Frauds And Tracking The Hidden Assets, Albert F. Tellechea, Michael J. Cortes

Florida A & M University Law Review

Each year banks are the targets of insider and outsider fraudulent activity. Borrowers overstate their assets and holdings in order to obtain loans for which they would never otherwise qualify. Employees embezzle, steal, or conspire with crooked clients for a kickback, and billions are lost. Law enforcement agencies around the world are reporting increased instances of corporate, mortgage, and bank fraud. For example, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations ("FBI") in its FY2007 Financial Crimes Report states that its corporate fraud cases doubled from five years earlier. Through FY2007, U.S. Grand Juries returned 183 indictments resulting in 173 convictions. …

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act: The Solution Or The Problem?, Sophie S. Chou

CMC Senior Theses

Tax evasion has been happening for decades, but after the highly publicized cases with two foreign banks, LGT and UBS, the United States (US) is cracking down on tax evaders. The latest addition to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s repertoire of enforcement tools is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, otherwise known as FATCA. The Act was enacted to incentivize tax information release by foreign financial institutions (FFIs) who would otherwise face a 30% withholding tax on any US source income. The question was whether or not the design of the Act and its implementation successfully met this goal.

This …

Regulatory Incentive Realignment And The Eu Legal Framework Of Bank Resolution, Andromachi Georgosouli

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Risks associated with incentive misalignment are liable to seriously jeopardize the effectiveness of bank resolution, when not properly contained. This Article considers the management of misaligned incentives between regulators that are found in a vertical relationship of public governance. Using the EU legal framework of bank resolution as its case study, this Article explores the effectiveness of the quasi-enforcement powers of the Single Resolution Board (SRB) and, where relevant, of the European Banking Authority (EBA) as an incentive realignment legal technique. Two principal difficulties are identified: on the one hand, the problematic interinstitutional dynamic of the SRB and the EBA …

On Territoriality And International Investment Law: Applying China's Investment Treaties To Hong Kong And Macao, Odysseas G. Repousis

Michigan Journal of International Law

To date, investor-state tribunals have been preoccupied with a range of issues revolving around the territorial application (territoriality) of international investment agreements (IIAs). The importance, as well as the various forms such issues take, has recently been highlighted in the decision of the Singapore High Court (SGHC) in Laos v. Sanum. In this case, the SGHC was asked by Laos to set aside an earlier arbitral award (in Sanum v. Laos), filed by a Macanese legal entity and rendered under the China-Laos bilateral investment treaty (BIT). In approaching the matter, the SGHC set aside the award on the grounds that …

Securities Regulations Investigations - United States-Swiss Treaty Attempts To Increase Cooperation In Releasing Names Of Swiss-Based Account Holders Involved In United States Securities And Exchange Commission Investigations, Daniel B. Simon Iii

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Pause And Harmonize: Issues On The Dodd-Frank Act And Its Cross-Border Applications, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 89 (2015), Yankun Guo

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The 2008 financial crisis was a rude awakening for global financial regulators. The lack of transparency and regulation of the derivatives market was a major contributing factor to the global economic recession. As a response, world leaders pledged to bring economic and regulatory reform to their respective nations. In order to meet these goals, the United States proposed the Dodd-Frank Act and, in 2010, the Act was signed into law by President Obama. One of the purposes of Dodd-Frank is to allow financial regulators to police all derivative contracts that may affect the United States; unfortunately, the extraterritorial reach of …

Municipal Bondage: The Undisclosed Disclosure Obligations On Municipal Securities Issuers, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 111 (2015), Claymore Hardman

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The municipal securities market has recently become the target of increased regulatory scrutiny. Once considered a “sleepy market,” the market is now burdened by new regulations, increased oversight, and heightened enforcement, which place direct disclosure obligations on municipal securities issuers. As such, the clear provisions of the 1975 Tower Amendment, which limit regulation of the municipal securities market to anti-fraud actions, have been cut off at all corners. This Article examines the fundamental discord between regulating the municipal securities market with the same structure and intensity as the corporate securities market. This Article proposes limiting the reach of federal regulatory …

Charting A New Revolution In Equity Crowdfunding: The Rise Of State Crowdfunding Regimes In Response To The Inadequacy Of Title Iii Of The Jobs Act, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 135 (2015), Christopher Douglas Mitchell

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

States, through the recent implementation of intrastate crowdfunding exemptions, have become significant players in the creation of an equity crowdfunding industry in the United States. Crowdfunding is an alternative capital-raising source for businesses and entrepreneurs, where investing and capital-raising takes place through solicitations of small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. While the federal crowdfunding provisions in Title III of the federal Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”) have received much publicity, states are taking a leading role in enacting equity crowdfunding laws. State-enacted intrastate crowdfunding laws authorize securities offerings by residents …

National Company Disclosure Regulatory Frameworks: Superficially Similar But Substantively Different, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 187 (2015), Gill North

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The United States has led the world for many decades with regard to company disclosure rules and standards; other national company disclosure structures are based largely on the U.S. model. In December 2013 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) indicated that it intended to review Regulation S-K, which contains many important rules governing listed company reporting in the United States. This Article calls for the SEC to maintain its comprehensive approach to corporate disclosure regulation and practice as an essential platform for the future health of global financial markets. This Article highlights the importance of the global leadership …

Liquidity, Systemic Risk, And The Bankruptcy Treatment Of Financial Contracts, Rizwaan J. Mokal

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

No abstract provided.

Bank Resolution In The European Banking Union: A Transatlantic Perspective On What It Would Take, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Wolf-Georg Ringe

Faculty Scholarship

The project of creating a Banking Union is designed to overcome the fatal link between sovereigns and their banks in the Eurozone. As part of this project, political agreement for a common supervision framework and a common resolution scheme has been reached with difficulty. However, the resolution framework is weak, underfunded and exhibits some serious flaws. Further, Member States' disagreements appear to rule out a federalized deposit insurance scheme, commonly regarded as the necessary third pillar of a successful Banking Union. This paper argues for an organizational and capital structure substitute for these two shortcomings that can minimize the systemic …

Reframing International Financial Regulation After The Global Financial Crisis: Rational States And Interdependence, Not Regulatory Networks And Soft Law, Matthew C. Turk

Michigan Journal of International Law

The British bank Northern Rock failed on September 14, 2007; U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns collapsed on March 17, 2008 and was subject to a government-engineered takeover by J.P. Morgan Chase; and, on the night of September 15, 2008, U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and sent global financial markets into disarray the following Monday morning. These financial institutions shared several features in common prior to their downfall, but perhaps the most curious is that they were each considered fully compliant with the second generation framework for the Basel Accords on Capital Adequacy (Basel II), an international agreement …

The Timing And Source Of Regulation, Frank Partnoy

Seattle University Law Review

The distinction between specific concrete rules and general abstract principles has engaged legal theorists for decades. This rules–principles distinction has also become increasingly important in corporate and securities law, as well as financial market regulation. This Article adds two important variables to the rules–principles debate: timing and source. Although these two variables are relevant to legal theory generally, the specific goal here is not to address and engage the rules versus principles literature directly. Rather, the goal here is to ask whether the debate about financial market regulation might benefit from a more transparent analysis of temporal and legal source …

Deferred Prosecutions In The Corporate Sector: Lessons From Libor, Justin O'Brien, Olivia Dixon

Seattle University Law Review

Since 2008, the global economic downturn has significantly in-creased operating pressures on major corporations. Additionally, there has been a corresponding increase in corporate tolerance for corruption, which has coincided with a marked preference by regulators in settling, rather than litigating, enforcement actions. This Article argues that the expansion of prosecutorial authority without appropriate accountability restraints is a major tactical and strategic error. It evaluates whether the mechanism can be made subject to effective oversight. It argues that the current frame-work in the United States is highly problematic, leading to settlements that generate newspaper headlines but not necessarily cultural change. It …

Enhancing The Transparency Dialogue In The “Santiago Principles” For Sovereign Wealth Funds, Adam D. Dixon

Seattle University Law Review

The financial crisis ultimately caused Western governments to welcome sovereign wealth fund (SWF) investment as a way to put a floor under collapsing markets and to provide a set of voluntary principles that would underwrite SWFs’ claim to legitimacy in the international community. In the autumn of 2007, then U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund, convened the International Working Group of SWFs (IWG) to draft a set of generally accepted principles and practices. These principles are referred to as the “Santiago Principles.” The implicit objective of these twenty-four voluntary principles is to promote greater …

Culture Wars: Rate Manipulation, Institutional Corruption, And The Lost Normative Foundations Of Market Conduct Regulation, Justin O'Brien

Seattle University Law Review

The global investigations into the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) have raised significant questions about how conflicts of interest are managed for regulated entities contributing to benchmarks. An alternative framework, which brings the management of the rate process under direct regulatory supervision, is under consideration, coordinated by the International Organization of Securities Commissions taskforce. The articulation of global principles builds on a review commissioned by the British government that suggests rates calculated by submission can be reformed. This paper argues that this approach is predestined to fail, precisely because it ignores the lessons of history. In revisiting …

Australia’S Experience With Foreign Direct Investment By State Controlled Entities: A Move Towards Xenophobia Or Greater Openness?, Greg Golding

Seattle University Law Review

Over the last few years, there has been considerable debate in Australia as to the appropriate regulation of foreign direct investment by entities affiliated with foreign governments. During that time, Australia has been a significant beneficiary of investment by sovereign wealth funds from many foreign jurisdictions, particularly by Chinese state owned enterprises. The Australian government, similar to governments of many developed Western countries, has struggled to properly calibrate its policy settings for regulating this type of investment activity. This Article considers the Australian regulatory regime and assesses Australia’s experience in regulating those investment flows during this period.

Community Of Support: Moving Toward Indirect Regulation Of The Hedge Fund Industry, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 1 (2014), Randy Haight

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The popularity of hedge funds has exponentially increased over the past decade due to the unparalleled gains that hedge funds present for investors. However, hedge funds remain largely unregulated in comparison to other financial instruments such as traditional stocks and derivatives. The emergence of the hedge fund as a component of the financial industry has brought with it questions pertaining to the optimal method of hedge fund regulation. The foremost concern in regulating hedge funds is to strike a balance between market stability and investor protection. In order to do so, an equilibrium must be found between leaving hedge funds …

Admission Of Guilt: Sinking Teeth Into The Sec’S Sweetheart Deals, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 27 (2014), Larissa Lee

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

Throughout its existence, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has allowed defendants to settle cases without admitting to the allegations of wrongdoing. This “neither admit nor deny” policy has received heavy criticism by judges, Congress, and the public, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. On June 18, 2013, SEC Chairman Mary Jo White announced the agency’s intention to require admissions of guilt in certain cases. While Chairman White did not articulate a clear standard of when admissions would be required, she did say that the agency would focus on the egregiousness of the defendant’s conduct and …

Bear Stearns And Lehman Brothers: “Too Big To Fail’S” Impact, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 49 (2014), Natalie Warrington

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

The 2008 financial crisis led to controversial government bailouts of institutions that were deemed “too big to fail” (TBTF). Critics propose that systemic risk and TBTF were the main causes of the financial collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers—two of the institutions that were at the center of the bailout controversy. These bailouts have been criticized as creating moral hazard which, for financial institutions, means that decision makers, counterparties, creditors, and shareholders will take fewer precautions and take on more risk since the government will bail them out. However, whether various market participants in fact take fewer precautions and …

Emerging Growth Companies Under The Jobs Act: An Analysis Of The “Ipo On-Ramp”, 3 J. Marshall Global Mkt. L.J. 63 (2014), Kiersten Zaza

John Marshall Global Markets Law Journal

Since 2008, the United States has been faced with a “jobless recovery” which can be attributed in part to a decline in new business creation. To study the link between small companies’ access to markets and creation of jobs, the IPO Task Force was created. The IPO Task Force conducted research and set forth various findings regarding the correlation between emerging growth companies and job creation. The IPO Task Force also attributed a decline in IPO activity to the complex regulatory environment. Accepting these findings, and in response, the JOBS Act passed with surprisingly high bipartisan support. The JOBS Act …

Substituted Compliance And Systemic Risk: How To Make A Global Market In Derivatives Regulation, Sean J. Griffith

Faculty Scholarship

The conventional wisdom is that the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 revealed faults in the ability of international financial regulation to contain the problem of systemic risk. Further conventional wisdom suggests that the failure to regulate comple

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 …

Who's In Charge Of Global Finance?, Michael S. Barr

Articles

The global financial crisis caused widespread harm not just to the financial system, but also to millions of households and businesses and to the global economy. The crisis revealed substantive, fundamental weaknesses in global financial regulation and raised serious questions about whether national regulators and the international financial regulatory system could ever be up to the task of overseeing global finance. This Article analyzes post-crisis reforms with two questions in mind: First, how can we build an effective international financial architecture with more than one architect? Second, can we build a system that is legitimate and accountable? The Article suggests …

Social Engineering Through Shari’A: Islamic Law And State-Directed Da’Wa In Contemporary Aceh, R. Michael Feener

Indonesia Law Review

This study of the contemporary Islamic legal system in Aceh, Indonesia argues for new attention to be paid to the ways in which contemporary Muslim agendas for the implementation of Islamic law can be read as projects for future oriented social transformation—rather than as a series of reactive measures to perceived ‘crises of modernity’ and/or the political machinations of rival elites in contesting control of state power. In doing so it highlights the ways in which the ideals of, and institutional formations developed by, proponents of Islamic law are configured in relation to a broad range of non-Muslim modernist projects, …

The Undersigned Attorney Hereby Certifies -- The Washington Supreme Court Rule On Standards And Its Implications, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Justice Susan Owens, Marc Boman, Joanne Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

G Forces: Gideon V. Wainwright And Matthew Adler's Move Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis, Janet Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Dark Medicine: How The National Research Act Has Failed To Address Racist Practices In Biomedical Experiments Targeting The African-American Community, Anietie Maureen-Ann Akpan

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.