Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Fintech: Antidote To Rent-Seeking?, Jeremy Kidd

Articles

Fintech is a reality of our modern society, and will likely become even more so in the future. Peer-to-peer lending, cybercurrencies, smart contracts, algorithmic lending, and more, have required adaptation by consumers and producers of financial services. Our modes of doing business will continue to be challenged and changed by these and other Fintech innovations, almost certainly expanding beyond merely “promot[ing] financial inclusion, expand[ing] access to capital for individuals and small businesses, and more broadly reshap[ing] how society interacts with financial services.” By reducing transaction costs, advancing technology opens the doors to innovations the likes of which we might not …

Quacks Or Bootleggers: Who’S Really Regulating Hedge Funds?, Jeremy Kidd

Articles

Influential scholars of corporate law have questioned previous federal interventions into corporate governance, calling it quackery. Invoking images of medical malpractice, these critiques have argued persuasively that Congress, in responding to crises, makes policy that disrupts efficient private rules and established state laws. This Article applies the Bootleggers and Baptists theory to show that Dodd–Frank’s hedge fund rules are more than just negligent or reckless, but designed to benefit special interests that compete with the hedge fund model. Those rules offer no solutions to any real or perceived risks arising from hedge fund investing, but might offer an advantage to …

Banking In The Digital Age - Who Is Afraid Of Payment Disintermediation?, Benjamin Geva

All Papers

Throughout the ages, banks have evolved as intermediaries taking deposits of funds, lending money, and providing payment services. In the process they became also suppliers of commercial bank money, now only in the form of bank deposits. Following a historical review as to how moneychangers and goldsmiths became bankers, the paper points out that money and payment digitization has brought some challenges to the traditional role of banks as intermediaries. First, the digital age is about to facilitate the availability of central bank money balances or their equivalent to the public. Second, cryptocurrencies and blockchains were born. Third, claim-check centralized …

Hyperfunding: Regulating Financial Innovations, Seth C. Oranburg

University of Colorado Law Review

Innovations in corporate finance are driven by frustrations with present regulations and fueled by the internet and social media. Hyperfunding is one such example: Tesla paved the way for an electric vehicle revolution by preselling hundreds of thousands of its Model 3 EV direct to consumers. Unwary consumers may not have realized that they were underwriting Tesla's bold strategy to transform multiple product markets. Risks were not disclosed. Rewards proved illusory. Investors would have been entitled to disclosures and colorable claims of fraud when Tesla missed milestones and deadlines. But consumers can only get their $1000 deposit back, without interest, …

The Full Protection And Security Standard In International Investment Law: What And Who Is Investment Fully[?] Protected And Secured From?, Nartnirun Junngam

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Your Bank May Be An International Terrorist: The Inconsistent Application Of Tort Law Principles To Financial Services Under The Anti-Terrorism Act, Elizabeth Walsh Pittman

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

"The Essential Characteristic": Enumerated Powers And The Bank Of The United States, Richard Primus

Michigan Law Review

The idea that Congress can legislate only on the basis of its enumerated powers is an orthodox proposition of constitutional law, one that is generally supposed to have been recognized as essential ever since the Founding. Conventional understandings of several episodes in constitutional history reinforce this proposition. But the reality of many of those events is more complicated. Consider the 1791 debate over creating the Bank of the United States, in which Madison famously argued against the Bank on enumerated-powers grounds. The conventional memory of the Bank episode reinforces the sense that the orthodox view of enumerated powers has been …

Remembering Financial Crises: The Risk Implications Of The Rise Of Institutional Investors In Project Finance, David J. Park

Michigan Law Review

Barely a decade ago, a cascading sequence of market failures threatened to topple the global financial system. Public responses to the recent Financial Crisis were immediate and drastic to resuscitate the global economy while attempting to make the markets safer. Many financial services sectors have since recovered to pre-crisis levels. One such industry is project finance, which comprises various financing arrangements often used to fund long-term infrastructure or industrial projects. Curiously, significant post-crisis banking regulations and other global credit enhancement initiatives are pushing banks out of project finance and giving rise to institutional investors. This Comment argues that animated institutional …

Know Everything That Can Be Known About Everybody: The Birth Of The Credit Report, Jonathan Weinberg

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

No Brakes: Loan Acceleration And Diminishing Foreclosure Defenses, Eric A. Zacks, Dustin A. Zacks

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

New Art For The People: Art Funds & Financial Technology, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Wealthy people have invested in art since time immemorial. But the modem art market emerged only in the late nineteenth century, as private wealth gradually spread to the bourgeoisie. As the art market grew and the most desirable artworks became extremely valuable, individuals and institutions began to form "art funds" to invest in this promising new asset class. In 1904, a group of Parisian art collectors formed La Peau d'Ours, the first private art investment club. Between 1974 and 1980, the British Rail Pension Fund invested £40 million in art. And in the 2000s, many private investment companies created …

Fintech's Double Edges, Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The pace of change in financial technologies has quickened due to the rapid advances in technology from the late 1990s through today, exemplified by the advance of handheld devices and applications and the pervasiveness of the Internet in every facet of commerce. New financial technologies--commonly identified by the portmanteau "FinTech" or "fmtech"--have already reshaped many commercial practices that affect businesses and consumers, and they are likely to change many more.

The increasing availability and sophistication of FinTech offers both promises and perils. Artificial intelligence-driven algorithms purport to improve access to credit on "objective" criteria but may sometimes reinforce longstanding discriminatory …

Whistling Loud And Clear: Applying Chevron To Subsection 21f Of Dodd–Frank, Shaun M. Bennett

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note addresses a circuit court split arising from a portion of the anti-retaliation provisions in the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Subsection 21F’s retaliation prohibitions apply to those employers whose employees make required or protected disclosures under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) or any other rule or regulation under the SEC’s jurisdiction. SOX provides anti -retaliation protections — similar to those available under Dodd–Frank — for employees of publicly traded companies who report misconduct. However, SOX expressly affords protections to those who provide information to “a Federal regulatory or law enforcement agency; any Member of …

The Rise Of Automated Investment Advice: Can Robo-Advisers Rescue The Retail Market?, Benjamin P. Edwards

Scholarly Works

Consumer interest in automated investment advice continues to grow. One informed observer recently predicted that automated investment advisers may manage $2 trillion in assets by 2020.Today, the two largest automated investment advice providers now manage approximately seventeen billion in assets while continuing to expand their capabilities. This rise of automated investment advice firms may disrupt and improve the market for investment advice and finally allow modem technology to make financial intermediation more efficient. For a variety of reasons, costs in the sector have remained abnormally high. One study found that "the unit cost of intermediation is about as high today …

Ending Litigation And Financial Windfalls On Time-Barred Debts, Marc C. Mcallister

Washington and Lee Law Review

A trap for unsophisticated debtors, debt collectors often attempt to collect time-barred debts through written offers to settle those debts for a fraction of what is owed. Debtors typically respond to such offers in one of four ways. First, some debtors simply pay the offered settlement amount, usually 10%–40% of the total outstanding debt, thereby satisfying the debt in full. Second, those who wish to eliminate the debt but cannot pay the entire offered settlement amount will instead make a small payment, unwittingly reviving the statute of limitations on collections and making the entire debt judicially enforceable for several years …

Canons Of Construction For Dysfunctional Statutes: A Comment On Bennett, Paul G. Mahoney

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Local Governments Where They Need To Go Without Taking Taxpayers For A Ride: "Cabs," Why They Are Used, And What Can Be Done To Prevent Their Misuse, Heather G. White

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Comment On Whistling Loud And Clear: Applying Chevron To Subsection 21f Of Dodd–Frank, Sarah C. Haan

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Gatekeepers Of Crowdfunding, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

Securities crowdfunding is premised on two core policy goals: inclusivity and efficiency. First, crowdfunding is conceived as an inclusive system where all entrepreneurs are given a chance to pitch their idea to the "crowd." Second, crowdfunding is supposed to be an efficient way to channel funds from public investors to promising startup companies. There is a fundamental tension between these two policy goals, however. A totally inclusive system would ensure that platforms list any and every company that wants to participate. But platforms need to curate and select the companies they list in order to establish a reputation as a …

Naked Open Market Manipulation And Its Effects, Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

More than 80 years after US federal law first addressed stock market manipulation, there is still dispute about manipulation law’s foundational principles; this chapter aims to provide clarity by offering an analytical framework for understanding a specific manipulation. There has been a sharp split among the federal circuits concerning manipulation law’s central question: Can trading activity alone ever be considered illegal manipulation? Economists and legal scholars do not agree on whether manipulation is possible in principle, let alone on how to address it properly in practice. The framework offered by this chapter aims to help clarify federal law and may …