Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Perspectives On Regulating Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This book chapter, which synthesizes several of the author’s articles, attempts to provide useful perspectives on regulating systemic risk. First, it argues that systemic shocks are inevitable. Accordingly, regulation should be designed not only to try to reduce those shocks but also to protect the financial system against their unavoidable impact. This could be done, the chapter explains, by applying chaos theory to help stabilize the financial system. The chapter then focuses on trying to prevent excessive corporate risk-taking, which is one of the leading triggers of systemic shocks and widely regarded to have been a principal cause of the …

Corporate Darwinism: Disciplining Managers In A World With Weak Shareholder Litigation, James D. Cox, Randall S. Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

Because representative shareholder litigation has been constrained by numerous legal developments, the corporate governance system has developed new mechanisms as alternative means to address managerial agency costs. We posit that recent significant governance developments in the corporate world are the natural consequence of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of shareholder suits to address certain genre of managerial agency costs. We thus argue that corporate governance responses evolve to fill voids caused by the inability of shareholder suits to monitor and discipline corporate managers.

We further claim that these new governance responses are themselves becoming stronger due in part to the rising …

Talking One's Way Out Of A Debt Crisis, Lee C. Buchheit, G. Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The policy of Euro-area officialdom in the period 2010-2011 was to avoid, at all costs, a default and restructuring of the sovereign debt of a member of the monetary union. This policy was motivated principally, but not exclusively, by a fear that the international capital markets, if forcibly reminded of the precarious position of overindebted, growth-challenged members of a monetary union, might recoil generally from lending to European sovereigns. In short, they feared contagion.

The only alternative to permitting a debt restructuring, of course, was an official sector bailout. The afflicted countries -- Greece (until 2012), Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus …

The Pricing Of Non-Price Terms In Sovereign Bonds: The Case Of The Greek Guarantees, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

In March 2012, Greece conducted one of the biggest and most brutal sovereign debt restructurings ever, asking holders of Greek government bonds to take net present value haircuts of near 80 percent. Greece forced acquiescence to its terms from a large number of its bonds by using a variety of legal strong-arm tactics. With the vast majority of Greek bonds, the tactics worked. There were, however, thirty-six bonds guaranteed by the Greek state, which, because of the weakness of the underlying companies, were effectively obligations of the Greek state. Yet, on these thirty six bonds, even though Greece desperately needed …

25 Years, Where Are We Now? Global Trade & Sovereign Debt, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Sovereign-Debt Listing Puzzle, Elisabeth De Fontenay, Josefin Meyer, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The claim that stock exchanges perform certification and monitoring roles in securities offerings is pervasive in the legal and financial literatures. This article tests the validity of this “bonding hypothesis” in the sovereign-bond market—one of the oldest and largest securities markets in the world. Using data on sovereign-bond listings for the entire post-World War II period, we provide the first comprehensive report on sovereigns’ historical listing patterns. We then test whether a sovereign bond issue’s listing jurisdiction affects its yield at issuance, as the bonding hypothesis would predict. We find little evidence of bonding in today’s sovereign-debt market. Instead, we …

Shadow Banking And Regulation In China And Other Developing Countries, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

The rapid but largely unregulated growth in shadow banking in developing countries such as China can jeopardize financial stability. This article discusses that growth and argues that a regulatory balance is needed to help protect financial stability while preserving shadow banking as an important channel of alternative funding. The article also analyzes how that regulation could be designed.

Regulating Financial Change: A Functional Approach, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

How should we think about regulating our dynamically changing financial system? Existing regulatory approaches have two temporal flaws. The obvious flaw, driven by politics and human nature (and addressed in other writings), is that financial regulation is overly reactive to past crises. This article addresses a less obvious but arguably more fundamental flaw: that financial regulation is normally tethered to the financial architecture, including the distinctive design and structure of financial firms and markets, in place when the regulation is promulgated. In order to effectively address future crises, this article argues, financial regulation must transcend that time-bound architecture. This could …

Sovereign Debt Restructuring: A Model-Law Approach, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

The existing contractual framework for sovereign debt restructuring is sorely inadequate. Whether or not their fault, nations sometimes take on debt burdens that become unsustainable. Until resolved, the resulting sovereign debt problem hurts not only those nations (such as Greece) but also their citizens, their creditors, and—by posing serious systemic risks to the international financial system—the wider economic community. The existing contractual framework functions poorly to resolve the problem because it often leaves little alternative between a sovereign debt bailout, which is costly and creates moral hazard, and a default, which raises the specter of systemic financial contagion.

Most observers …

The Enduring Legacy Of Modern Efficient Market Theory After Halliburton V. John, Mark Klock

Georgia Law Review

In 1988 the U.S. Supreme Court approved the fraud on the market theory for securities trading in an efficient market thus enabling securities class action plaintiffs to establish their required reliance element of the case through a rebuttable presumption. Basic v. Levinson held that efficient markets incorporate publicly disseminated information and investors who purchased or sold securities in an efficient market therefore relied on any publicly disseminated misinformation. For more than a quarter century since Basic, the efficient market theory has sustained a barrage of assaults from commentators who object to the use of economic theory in legal decision making …

“Ev’Ry American Experiment Sets A Precedent”: Why One Florida State Court’S Bitcoin Opinion Is Everyone’S Business, Allison Caffarone, Meg Holzer

Scholarly Works

Part I of this article seeks to explain in largely non-technical terms the design of the Bitcoin network. Part II explains the guidance and administrative rulings provided by the United States Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in relation to the issues in the Espinoza case. Additionally, Part II surveys different approaches taken by state legislatures and regulators in seeking to address decentralized virtual currencies, including bitcoin. Careful attention is paid to how the terms "monetary value" and "virtual currency" are defined, and how those definitions have been interpreted. Part II further explores the differences in the way …

Underwriting Sustainable Homeownership: The Federal Housing Administration And The Low Down Payment Loan, David Reiss

Georgia Law Review

The United States Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has been a versatile tool of government since it was created during the Great Depression. The FHA was created in large part to inject liquidity into a moribund mortgage market. It succeeded wonderfully, with rapid growth during the late 1930s. The federal government repositioned it a number of times over the following decades to achieve a variety of additional social goals. These goals included supporting civilian mobilization during World War II; helping veterans returning from that war; stabilizing urban housing markets during the 1960s; and expanding minority homeownership rates during the 1990s. It …

Border Town Bullies: The Bad Auto Deal And Subprime Lending Problem Among Navajo Nation Car Buyers, Megan Horning

Student Published Scholarship

This article argues that due to the circumstances of Navajo Nation residents, Navajo car buyers have a greater need for cars and are therefore disproportionately harmed by unfair border town auto deals and subprime auto loans. Additionally, this article suggests several ways to address these issues while acknowledging the conundrum created if Navajo Nation residents are prevented from buying cars.

Part I of this article describes the current U.S. auto sales and lending process, including the stages of car buying, credit score calculation, and how national auto sales, lending, and investment markets profit from unfair car sales and subprime lending. …

Top-Down Bank Capital Regulation, Heidi Mandanis Schooner

Scholarly Articles

In proposing a top-down system of capital regulation, this Article shares a precautionary attitude toward bank regulation found increasingly in post-Financial Crisis scholarship. The viewpoint is one that favors ex ante financial regulation in which regulators are charged with avoiding public harm. More broadly, this Article rejects the notion that regulation is the enemy of markets and therefore must be minimized. Regulation is viewed neutrally—neither inherently good nor inherently bad—as a co-existing partner in highly complex and ever evolving financial markets.

To develop the case for a top-down system of capital regulation, this Article continues as follows, Part II describes …

Investment Accelerators, Brad Bernthal

Publications

This Article documents and explains the legal and extralegal dimensions of Investment Accelerator (IA) systems. Accelerators are a new class of institution that supports entrepreneurs and early stage startups. Investment Accelerators take an ownership stake in companies that participate in an intensive, time-limited program. Interviews reveal the surprising extent to which parties in many Investment Accelerators exchange economic value in the absence of formal agreement. Startups share proprietary information with highly accomplished mentors who, in turn, contribute their time and connections without direct compensation. This under-contracted and informal arrangement raises concerns about opportunism. Data from an original investigation presents a …

Economic Crisis And The Integration Of Law And Finance: The Impact Of Volatility Spikes, Edward G. Fox, Merritt B. Fox, Ronald J. Gilson

Faculty Scholarship

The 2008 financial crisis raised puzzles important for understanding how the capital market prices common stocks and in turn, for the intersection between law and finance. During the crisis, there was a dramatic fivefold spike, across all industries, in "idiosyncratic risk" – the volatility of individual-firm share prices after adjustment for movements in the market as a whole.

This phenomenon is not limited to the most recent financial crisis.This Article uses an empirical review to show that a dramatic spike in idiosyncratic risk has occurred with every major downturn from the 1920s through the recent financial crisis. It canvasses three …

Can Parallel Lines Ever Meet? The Strange Case Of The International Standards On Sovereign Debt And Business And Human Rights, Daniel D. Bradlow

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This special issue is a cooperation of the Yale Journal of International Law and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). It emerged from UNCTAD’s work on sovereign debt workouts, specifically from its Working Group on a Sovereign Debt Workout Mechanism (2013 to 2015). The working group developed a Roadmap and Guide for Sovereign Debt Workouts, published in 2015. It proposes an incremental approach to sovereign debt workouts that relies on the continuous, progressive development of sovereign debt restructuring practice. This work has inspired the adoption of Basic Principles for Sovereign Debt Restructuring by the United Nations General …

The Wolf At The Door: The Impact Of Hedge Fund Activism On Corporate Governance, John C. Coffee Jr., Darius Palia

Faculty Scholarship

Hedge fund activism has recently spiked, almost hyperbolically. No one disputes this, and most view it as a significant change. But, their reasons differ. Some see activist hedge funds as the natural champions of dispersed and diversified shareholders, who are less capable of collective action in their own interest. A key fact about activist hedge funds is that they are undiversified and typically hold significant stakes in the companies that comprise their portfolios. Given their larger stakes and focused holdings, they are less subject to the “rational apathy” that characterizes more diversified and even indexed investors, such as pension and …

Incentivizing The Protection Of Personally Identifying Consumer Data After The Home Depot Breach, Ryan F. Manion

Indiana Law Journal

The breach of payment card systems at the Home Depot in 2014 resulted in the theft of a wealth of information. This Note will examine the facts and legal consequences of the Home Depot breach under three separate frameworks. First, this Note will examine the Home Depot’s responsibilities arising under existing data breach notification statutes. Second, this Note examines the Home Depot’s potential liability if the recent bill introduced by Senator Leahy of Vermont proposing a federal data breach notification framework becomes law; ultimately, however, this Note finds that state notification statutes fail to adequately protect consumers, and Senator Leahy’s …

The International Banking Act Of 1978: Federal Regulation Of Foreign Banks In The United States, Patrick F. Mcmahon

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.