Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Law Grapples With Its Achilles’ Heel? Uncertainties, Digital Experiments, And The Ai Frontier, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The governance of digitalization— which encompasses developments such as artificial intelligence (AI) and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — confronts serious challenges. At the core of the challenges are uncertainties, which form the central obstacle to effective governance. These uncertainties range from cyber risks to shifting societal responses. Law, as an institutionalized framework of governance, faces mounting pressure and wrestles with a fundamental vulnerability: traditional legal frameworks struggle to address uncertainties in digitalization.

To tackle the pervasive challenges of uncertainties, this article addresses two connected questions: What uncertainties does law face in governing digitalization shaped by emerging technologies? How can …

Blazing A New Path: How Regulatory Negotiation Can Resolve Cannabis Legalization’S Shortcomings, Natalie Pearson

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

New York’s ambitious cannabis legalization effort has fallen short of its promises, burdened by regulatory confusion, industry roadblocks, and an unchecked illicit market. Despite state-level approval, legalization remains riddled with contradictions and obstacles, leaving businesses and policymakers struggling to navigate an unstable framework. This Note explores how regulatory negotiation, an alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) mechanism, can address key industry challenges, particularly those arising from conflicting federal and state laws.

Dispute Resolution Tailored For Digital Assets, Michele Kallo

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

As digital asset markets continue to expand, the need for efficient and reliable dispute resolution mechanisms has grown increasingly pressing. In May 2022, alone, over 200 individual and class action lawsuits related to digital assets were filed, with cases only deepening in nuance. Traditional litigation, with its high costs, slow timelines, and jurisdictional complexities, often falls short in resolving such disputes. In reaction to these limitations, decentralized arbitration platforms have emerged as spaces for dispute resolution. While innovative, these platforms’ susceptibility to issues such as market volatility, barriers to juror diversity, and impartiality limitations raise questions about their effectiveness as …

Defining The Field Of Law And Macroeconomics: A Framework From International Monetary Law, Nikita Aggarwal, Adam Feibelman

Articles

This Article proposes an analytical framework for defining the contours of the emerging field of law and macroeconomics drawing on the International Monetary Fund's principle of "macro-criticality." Such a framework can help steer scholarly debate toward a clearer understanding of the relationship between law and the economy and inform policymaking within that domain. In its native context, the macro-criticality principle limits the IMF's jurisdiction to policy areas that are critical for member countries' domestic and external stability. The IMF's approach distinguishes between a core set of macrocritical policies and other non-core policies that are contextually macrocritical. Over time, the IMF …

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 …

Breaking Down Broken Banks: The Case For A New Regulatory And Supervisory Framework, Federico Curbelo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Bank failures are systemic breakdowns in regulatory and supervisory frameworks that threaten the financial bedrock of the United States economy and can potentially cause panic and contagion to the broader banking sector. Although banks function as standalone institutions, when one bank fails, it often takes down others with it. Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) was one such bank whose failure temporarily destabilized a whole sector and prompted important questions about the effectiveness of the current financial regulation and supervision scheme.

This Note argues that the current regulatory and supervisory categorization scheme that the Federal Reserve uses to keep banks in …

Fireside Chat | Alessandro Cocco: Career Paths Across Private Sector And Public Service, Ronald H. Filler Institute For Financial Services Law

Ronald H. Filler Institute for Financial Services Law

September 22, 2025

Too Scared To Use: Living Wills And Orderly Liquidation Of Too-Big-To-Fail Financial Institutions, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Law & Economics Working Papers

The term “too big to fail” became ubiquitous following the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis. Lawmakers, regulators, and scholars wondered if there was a better way forward than issuing an array of ad hoc bailout packages to large financial institutions. Congress, in enacting the Dodd-Frank Act, sought to address the concern by creating a new regulatory framework to resolve large financial institutions in an orderly manner.

First, Congress required too-big-to-fail institutions to file “living wills,” essentially planning documents that describe the institution’s path to a safe failure under the Bankruptcy Code—a failure that would not impact system-wide financial stability. Second, Congress …

Chapter 9 Bankruptcy: The Solution That Causes Problems, Peter C. Alexander

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

There is a little-known form of bankruptcy called a “Chapter 9,” reserved for insolvent cities, villages, and other municipalities. Occasionally, one reads about a city or a county that has filed for Chapter 9 relief, like Detroit, Michigan, or Orange County, California; however, it is very hard to file a Chapter 9 case, in part, because existing law requires a municipality to obtain permission from its home state before it can file for relief in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. An additional constraint is that the only option municipalities have when seeking bankruptcy relief is to file a Chapter 9 because …

Barbarians At The Gate Or Angels At The Crossroads? Examining The Impact Of The Uk Green Taxonomy On Private Equity Firms, Melek Redzheb, Fatjon Kaja

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Article explores whether the UK Green Taxonomy will foster sustainable corporate governance in private equity-backed portfolio companies. We explore how the Taxonomy will address the greenwashing problem that plagues financial markets, including the private equity industry. Our analysis suggests that general partners will have a twofold response to the new reforms. In the short term, they will seek to address the social concerns of limited partners by negatively screening unsustainable companies and cherry-picking more sustainable ones (the so-called “exit” strategy). In the long term, however, they will adopt a dynamic strategy to transform unsustainable targets into sustainable enterprises on …

Show Me The Money: Approaches To Anti-Money Laundering Compliance For Digital Assets, Mollie Rouan

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (“MiCA”) created a harmonized framework to regulate digital asset issuance and services that were not already covered by existing regulations. Notably, MiCA requires virtual asset providers to adhere to the Financial Action Task Force Recommendation 16 (“FATF”), also known as the Travel Rule. Though the Travel Rule has existed for almost 20 years, its application to crypto asset transfers is entirely new. The purpose of the Travel Rule is to detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, but its application to cryptocurrency wallet transactions is criticized for being overly burdensome and invasive …

The Dubious Role Of Institutional Investors In Driving The Green Transition: Legal And Economic Constraints, Giovanni Strampelli

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

There is a well-established trend that the process of transition to a sustainable economic growth model marked by the pursuit of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) objectives has large companies at its center, which are considered an essential hub for this purpose given their weight in the global economy. In this context, the role of shareholders, especially institutional investors, plays an important role. Indeed, it is widely recognized that they, having an increasing prominence in the shareholder base of large, listed companies, can push these public companies to adopt more virtuous conduct in the areas of, among others, environmental protection …

Why Financial Crises Recur, Gary B. Gorton, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Law & Economics Working Papers

Financial crises have occurred around the world for over two centuries. These crises have been so costly and frequent that one wonders why governments cannot prevent them from recurring despite repeated, wide-ranging attempts at legislation, regulation, supervision, and enforcement.

In this article, we argue that lawmakers repeatedly act in two ways that may appear to be intuitive but are actually detrimental to system-wide stability. First, lawmakers fail to understand that “banks”—both traditional banks and shadow banks—produce runnable short-term debt, unlike other firms in the economy. To produce short-term debt, banks operate with opacity. Yet a regulatory framework based on secrecy …

Revisiting Letters Of Credit And The Enforceability Of Sanctions Clauses: Case Comment: Kuvera Resources Pte Ltd V Jpmorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Bing Feng, Keith Law

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

This article is a case commentary on the recent Singapore Court of Appeal decision of Kuvera Resources Pte Ltd v JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. [2023] 2 SLR 389. It begins with a brief review of the structure of documentary credit transactions before setting out the judgments by the High Court and Court of Appeal. The commentary then examines how both courts rationalised letters of credit within the traditional framework of unilateral contracts, before scrutinising the current position of sanctions clauses within letters of credit. It disagrees with the Court of Appeal’s hesitance towards accepting such clauses, noting that the unilateral …

The Behavioral Effects Of Corporate Ghg Emissions Disclosures, Cynthia Hanawalt, Andy Fitch

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In recent years, roughly 30 nations have implemented regulatory regimes that mandate some type of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure from corporations. As GHG emissions disclosure regimes continue to take hold, several key questions arise: will they prompt meaningful and sustained reductions, or will they merely serve to document corporations’ unabated emissions? And if these regimes do lead to lasting emissions reductions, precisely what causes the changes in companies’ behavior? These questions are particularly relevant as climate advocates grapple with the merits of disclosure as a tool for real emissions impact, and as policymakers refine disclosure requirements to best fit …

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 …

How To Strengthen The International Competitiveness Of Capital Markets, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global capital markets are undergoing profound transformation. Over the past decade, there has been a marked decline in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in most advanced economies, including those with highly developed capital markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Interestingly, during the same period, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and particularly China have witnessed a significant increase in the number of listed companies, contributing to making Asia home to approximately 55 percent of all listed companies worldwide (OECD, 2025). Much of the decline in IPO activity in many advanced economies can be attributed to the expansion of …

The Regulatory Challenges Raised By The Evolution From Open Banking To Banking-As-A-Service, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In May 2024, a company in California suddenly made headlines across the financial press. Synapse Financial Technologies, once hailed as a pioneer in the next wave of financial innovation, filed for bankruptcy. The company had promised to revolutionize banking by providing “Banking-as-a-Service” (BaaS): an invisible layer of technology that allowed apps to plug directly into the financial system.

Strengthening The International Competitiveness Of Capital Markets: Global Insights And Local Strategies, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global capital markets are undergoing a profound transformation. Over the past decade, there has been a marked decline in Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in most advanced economies, including those with highly developed capital markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Interestingly, during the same period, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and particularly China, have witnessed a significant increase in the number of listed companies, contributing to making Asia home to approximately 55% of all listed companies worldwide. The decline in IPO activity has prompted many countries and regions around the world, including the United Kingdom, the United …