Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

When You’Re Arrested For A Felony In Seattle, You’Ll Meet Me., Austin Field

Seattle University Law Review

In this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.

"I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes."

The Public Square In A Private-Property Obsessed Country: What New York City’S Pops Regulations Get Right And Why Other Cities Should (Mostly) Copy Them, Carson Mcgregor

Seattle University Law Review

When New York City (NYC) was first becoming the metropolitan monolith it is today, it had a problem: the city streets were chock full of skyscrapers, and sunlight, air, and usable open space were at a premium. In response, the City promulgated its first Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) regulations, which allowed developers to build skyward in exchange for providing public space on the street level. Unfortunately, in July of 2023, the New York Times (NYT) discovered that New Yorkers received only a fraction of what they were promised. Building owners received billions of dollars’ worth of added floor space, …

Modern Day Colonialism Through HawaiʻI’S Quiet Title And Partition Laws, Cheyann Fujii

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will attempt to highlight important aspects of Hawaiian history to provide readers with a clear picture on how Native Hawaiians are still impacted by colonialism, specifically when plaintiffs bring a quiet title or partition action against Native Hawaiian owners of kuleana lands. Before colonization, the concept of private land ownership did not exist in Hawai‘i, and Native Hawaiians adopted a feudal system by dividing land into geographical areas. Missionaries and businessmen brought Western ideas to Hawai‘i and influenced legislation such as the Great Māhele and the Kuleana Land Act of 1850, which solidified the concept of private property. …

Data Advantage And Merger Review: Can Entrenchment Theory Reform Antitrust Enforcement?, Shin-Ru Cheng

Seattle University Law Review

A merger involving giant digital companies is likely to dampen competition, as it allows those companies to combine and control data access, enabling them to entrench their dominant positions in relevant markets and extend those positions into related markets. While competition law in many jurisdictions aims to prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly, arguably the review of digital mergers is failing because antitrust agencies lack an effective approach to identify data-generated anticompetitive harms. This Article demonstrates that entrenchment theory, recently reintroduced in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, would help reform the process of antitrust enforcement. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Caution: Potholes In E-Scooter Data Collection, Dakota Rakestraw

Seattle University Law Review

Lime scooters keep ending up in major waterways in Washington state metro areas, a testament to the ubiquity of e-scooters in the metropolitan landscape. How they get there is unclear. Why they get there is even murkier. Perhaps the answer lies in the implications of modern geolocation data collection through e-scooters and gaps in current data collection regulation curbing individual liberties.

Since September 2020, electric scooters have run Seattle’s streets and have dramatically overtaken ridesharing bike trips. For example, from September 2020 to September 2021, there were about 1.4 million scooter and bike trips with September 2021 seeing 300,000 scooter …

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Defining Deference: Impacts Of Abandoning Chevron On Emerging Technology Governance And Administrative Law, R. Aubrey Davis Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), often lead to unforeseen legal outcomes. Notable abuses in areas such as facial recognition, employment bias, and housing discrimination are well known. However, legislative responses to these issues either have been largely reactive or there has been no legislative response at all. In lieu of legislation, agencies have sought to fill the gap. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed a rule mandating voter notification for all AI-generated political phone calls citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as authority. However, the TCPA was originally passed to curtail telemarketing, not …

Intellectual Property Or Modern Folklore? The Problem With Open Gaming Licenses In Tabletop Gaming, Rosie Midget

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses how courts and legislatures should address “Open Gaming Licenses” commonly attached to tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), which game publishers use to promote a false image of accessibility—misleading consumers and building goodwill from the misunderstanding. Part I discusses what TTRPGs are, including the defining features of the hobby and culture surrounding it, as well as the unique interplay between publishers and players. Part II explores the question of which elements in a TTRPG system may be subject to copyright protection. Part III examines these elements in practice using Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons TTRPG as a …

Negative Trading In Congress, Peter Molk, Frank Partnoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

We investigate negative trading, such as short selling, by members of Congress. We find, based on a new comprehensive dataset of trades by members of Congress, that negative trading not only is common, but also is associated with positive abnormal financial returns. Simply put, members of Congress make money when they bet on stock price drops.

In contrast, we do not find a similar association for long positions taken by members of Congress. In other words, there is an asymmetry between “positive” versus “negative” congressional trading. This asymmetry has multiple implications for public policy.

Our main message is that proposals …

Shaq, Ripple, And The Future Of Crypto Regulation, James C. Spindler

William & Mary Law Review

Crypto is at a regulatory crossroads. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators have taken a hard line on enforcing traditional regulatory requirements that would severely limit crypto offering activities. At the same time, crypto advocates seek preferential treatment, under the guise of “regulatory clarity,” that would allow them to bypass much of the applicable regulatory regimes. After a halt to legislative activities, brought on by the FTX implosion and ensuing crypto winter, the battle for crypto’s future is currently in the courts. Two pending, bellwether cases—the class action against Shaquille O’Neal and other celebrity spokesmen for FTX, …

The Sec, Fraud, And Cryptocurrencies, Lawrence J. Trautman, Brian Elzweig, Neal F. Newman

Faculty Scholarship

The SEC’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2022–2026 is focused on the impact of the rapidly developing rate of change in new technologies that provide for markets to be more interconnected and interdependent than ever. Because Congress has yet to give the SEC, or any other agency, express authority to regulate cryptocurrency, the SEC has taken a regulation-by-enforcement approach. The SEC’s recent enforcement efforts relating to crypto asset securities were substantial, with enforcement actions addressing a range of alleged misconduct in the crypto asset securities space, including billion- dollar crypto fraud schemes; unregistered crypto asset offerings, platforms, and intermediaries; and …

Regulating Decentralised Finance? A Singapore Perspective, Rachel Phang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The emergent phenomenon of decentralised finance (“DeFi”) can be understood as the performance of financial functions through applications that are built on distributed ledger technology and operate using cryptoassets and smart contracts, without the need for traditional centralised intermediaries. In what ways does DeFi challenge existing financial regulation, and how should regulation develop in light of the DeFi phenomenon? In addressing this question, this article provides an overview of DeFi, surveys the current regulatory landscape in Singapore, considers key regulatory issues and policy considerations associated with DeFi, and discusses some potential directions for the future development of the regulation of …

The "Not Seen" Effect Of International Financial Centers: Innovation In The Global Financial Ecosystem, Charlotte Ku, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Scholarship

International Financial Centers (IFCs) are hubs of legal and financial innovation, developing specialized frameworks that facilitate cross-border investment, enhance global capital mobility, and support economic growth. Through jurisdictional competition, professional clustering, and adaptive regulatory frameworks, IFCs have pioneered legal structures that enable enterprises of all sizes to participate in the global economy. Using case studies of the International Business Company, the Limited Liability Company, the Protected Cell Company, and advances in trust law and applying the theoretical frameworks of social scientist Richard Florida and psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, this Article illustrates how IFCs serve as laboratories for financial experimentation, generating widely …

From Doing Business To B-Ready: World Bank’S New Rankings Represent A Rebrand, Not A Revamp, Fernanda G. Nicola, Dhaisy Paredes Guzman

Popular Media

In 2021, the World Bank shut down one of its flagship projects: the Doing Business index, a global ranking system that measured how easy it was to start and run a business in 190 countries. It followed an independent investigation that found World Bank officials had manipulated the rankings to favor powerful countries, including China and Saudi Arabia. The scandal raised serious concerns about the use of global benchmarks to shape development policy. Now, the Bank is trying again. In October 2024, it launched its newest flagship report, Business Ready. The 2025 spring meeting of the World Bank and its …

Lessons Learned: Fabrizio López-Gallo, Mercedes Cardona

Journal of Financial Crises

Fabrizio López-Gallo served as the Bank of Mexico’s director general of financial stability during the COVID-19 pandemic, having been financial sector specialist and risk analysis and special projects manager for the central bank during the 2007–09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The Mexican government declared a health emergency at the outbreak of the pandemic and implemented a general economic shutdown. The Bank of Mexico intervened by cutting rates and initiating extraordinary measures, such as adding bond swaps and loosening rules for minimum deposits at commercial banks to provide liquidity. It gave flexibility to commercial banks to grant forbearance on mortgage payments …

Lessons Learned: Cecilia Skingsley, Maryann Haggerty

Journal of Financial Crises

During the Swedish banking crisis of the early 1990s, Cecilia Skingsley was the press secretary for the Ministry of Finance. She held various roles, including chief economist, at Swedbank, one of Sweden’s largest banks, from 2007 to 2013, a period that included the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and European Sovereign Debt Crisis. Swedbank suffered heavy losses amid the GFC and relied on a government guarantee program for support. In 2013, she became a deputy governor of Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank; in 2019, she became first deputy governor. Skingsley left the Riksbank in September 2022 to become head of the …

Lessons Learned: Philip Lane, Mary Anne Chute Lynch, Rosalind Z. Wiggins

Journal of Financial Crises

Philip Lane served as governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from 2015 to 2019. He introduced countercyclical capital and systemic buffer tools and initiated research into the role and risks of cross-border inflows across Ireland. As a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) since 2015, Lane has advocated for the European Union to adopt macroprudential policies and tools. He hailed the work of the European Systemic Risk Board and similar institutions established after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis to share data, information concerning risks, and concerns over financial …

Lessons Learned: J. Christopher Flowers, Mary Anne Chute Lynch

Journal of Financial Crises

J. Christopher Flowers has been managing director, CEO, and chairman of the private investment firm J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC for many years. During the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007–2009, Flowers was involved with investing in some of the largest banks and financial institutions in the world and advising and consulting with them on possible acquisitions, mergers, and sales as several of these firms began to collapse. In the fall of 2008, Flowers worked closely with the Bank of America (BofA) on proposals to acquire Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, and he developed a plan for private investors to …