Commercial Law Commons^™

The Social Costs Of Dividends And Share Repurchases, J.B. Heaton

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

A long-held view in the academy is that shareholders are "residual claimants” in the sense that shareholders are paid in full only after the corporation pays its creditors. The reality on the ground is far different. Corporations give assets away to their shareholders long before they have satisfied creditors, both voluntary contract creditors and involuntary tort creditors. In particular, existing U.S. corporate and voidable transfer laws allow corporations to pay dividends and make share repurchases up to the point where the corporation is insolvent or nearly so. Voluntary creditors can limit dividends and share repurchases by contract, but involuntary creditors …

Law School News: A Busy, Busy Time In Admiralty Law 10-18-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Inside Rwu Law's Small 'Admiralty Empire' 10-18-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Fatal Leviathan: A Hayekian Perspective Of Lex Mercatoria In Civil Law Countries, Fabio Núñez Del Prado Ch.

Pace International Law Review

Who should create default commercial rules? Should they be created in a constructivist way or should they be created rather through a spontaneous order? Should Kelsen’s positivism prevail in commercial law? Drawing on diverse libertarian literature, I will argue that, since courts do not play a dominant role in civil law countries and, more importantly, do not set precedents, default commercial rules should not be created by the legislator, but through the Lex Mercatoria.

Commercial Law: Secured Transactions Statutory And Supplementary Materials: 2019-20, Benjamin Geva

Osgoode Course Casebooks

Course code: 2030.4

Bitcoin: Order Without Law In The Digital Age, John O. Mcginnis, Kyle Roche

Indiana Law Journal

Modern law makes currency a creature of the state and ultimately the value of its currency depends on the public’s trust in that state. While some nations are more capable than others at instilling public trust in the stability of their monetary institutions, it is nonetheless impossible for any legal system to make the pre-commitments necessary to completely isolate the governance of its money supply from political pressure. This proposition is true not only today, where nearly all government institutions manage their money supply in the form of central banking, but also true of past private banking regimes circulating their …

The Future Of Dairy Cooperatives In The Modern Marketplace: Redeveloping The Capper-Volstead Act, Sarah K. Phillips

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Agriculture plays a fundamental role in the U.S. economy as a multibillion-dollar industry that feeds people all over the world. However, over the past decade, the dairy industry in particular has changed from a reliable sector of the greater agricultural industry into an unsettled, politically-charged, and fractured group. Dairy farmers’ consistently receiving low milk prices has facilitated this divide. Tired of being ignored and underpaid, dairy farmers are demanding change in the current dairy market structure.

Federal Milk Marketing Orders and a variety of statutes regulate the dairy industry, but the 1922 Capper-Volstead Act remains the most notable piece of …

Lawmakers As Job Buyers, Edward W. De Barbieri

Fordham Law Review

In 2013, Washington State authorized the largest state tax incentive for private industry in U.S. history. It is not remarkable for a state legislature to use tax benefits to retain a major employer—in this case, the global aerospace manufacturer Boeing. Laws across all states and thousands of cities routinely incentivize companies such as Amazon to relocate or remain in particular areas. Notably, however, Washington did not recover any of the subsidies it authorized despite Boeing’s significant post-incentive workforce reductions. This story leads to several important questions: (1) How effective are state and local legislatures at influencing business-location decisions?; (2) Do …

Regulating Habit-Forming Technology, Kyle Langvardt

Fordham Law Review

Tech developers, like slot machine designers, strive to maximize the user’s “time on device.” They do so by designing habit-forming products— products that draw consciously on the same behavioral design strategies that the casino industry pioneered. The predictable result is that most tech users spend more time on device than they would like, about five hours of phone time a day, while a substantial minority develop life-changing behavioral problems similar to problem gambling. Other countries have begun to regulate habit-forming tech, and American jurisdictions may soon follow suit. Several state legislatures today are considering bills to regulate “loot boxes,” a …

Ecosystem Competition And The Antitrust Laws, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Conventional antitrust norms analyze market power—as a stepping stone to anticompetitive effects and, hence, prohibited conduct—from the perspective of product substitutability. Two goods or services are said to compete with one another when they are reasonably interchangeable from the perspective of consumers, or to put it in more formal economic terms, when there is cross-elasticity of demand between them. Conversely, when two goods or services are not reasonably interchangeable, they are not horizontally related and are said not to compete with one another. Since a concern over horizontal agreements and horizontal effects dominate antitrust—courts even analyze vertical agreement or merger …

A New System Of Electronic Chattel Paper: Notification Of Assignment, Thomas E. Plank

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Comparing The International Commercial Courts Of China With The Singapore International Commercial Court, Zhengxin Huo, Yip Man

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The article critically reviews the litigation framework of the Chinese International Commercial Court("CICC') using a comparative approach, taking as a benchmark the Singapore International Commercial Court ("SICC')--another Asian international commercial court situated within the Belt and Road Initiative ("BRI') geography. It argues that the CICC, despite being lauded as a visionary step toward an innovative, efficient and trustworthy dispute resolution system, does not live up to those grand claims on closer scrutiny. The discussion shows that the CICC is in many respects insular and conservative when compared with the SICC. The distinctions between the two litigation frameworks may be explained …

Net Neutrality And The European Union’S Copyright Directive For The Digital Single Market, Nathan Guzé

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

The European Union’s Copyright Directive for the Digital Single Market should cause concern for net neutrality advocates. This article casts a critical gaze at Article 17 (previously Article 13) of this new Directive. It chronicles the Directive’s life: starting as a reaction to the perceived inadequate copyright protections provided by the previous Information Society Copyright Directive through to its then-present status circa May 2019. Next, net neutrality is defined, and its benefits and detriments are weighed to ultimately determine the policy is desirable. Article 17’s call for eliminating safe-harbor provisions for content hosts and its call for content filters signal …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smart Contracts And Consumers, Tatiana Cutts

West Virginia Law Review

“Smart contracts” are a way of using computers to make contracts unbreakable. Contracting parties do not need to trust one another to perform or rely upon intermediaries to enforce performance. Performance is guaranteed. This is supposed to be a victory for the ordinary person—a clever socio-economic application of cryptography that strips power from companies and governments and gives it to consumers. But it turns out that less trust does not mean more freedom, or better bargains. The law of contract supports valuable relationships both by enforcing duties and by allowing parties to escape the consequences of ill-formed contracts and oppressive …

The New Data Of Student Debt, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Where you go to college and what you choose to study has always been important, but, with the help of data science, it may now determine whether you get a student loan. Silicon Valley is increasingly setting its sights on student lending. Financial technology (“fintech”) firms such as SoFi, CommonBond, and Upstart are ever-expanding their online lending activities to help students finance or refinance educational expenses. These online companies are using a wide array of alternative, education-based data points—ranging from applicants’ chosen majors, assessment scores, the college or university they attend, job history, and cohort default rates—to determine creditworthiness. Fintech …

International Recognition Of Singapore´S New Restructuring Framework, Aurelio Gurrea-Martinez

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the past years, Singapore has modernized its insolvency framework with the purpose of becoming an international hub for debt restructuring. One of the most significant reforms has affected the Singapore Scheme of Arrangement (SSoA). Under the new SSoA, debtors are allowed to remain in possession leading the restructuring process while enjoying the protection of an automatic moratorium with worldwide effects as well as a variety of tools imported from the US Chapter 11, including the availability of DIP financing, the restriction of ipso facto clauses, and a cross-class cramdown. Therefore, the new SSoA differs significantly from the typical scheme …

Singapore Company Law And The Economy: Reciprocal Influence Over 50 Years, Vincent Ooi, Cheng Han Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A strong reciprocal relationship has existed between Singapore Company Law (SCL) and the economy since Independence in 1965. Swift Parliamentary responses to economic events and successful implementation of Government policies has made it possible to clearly attribute cause and effect to statutory amendments and economic events in turn, proving the reciprocal relationship between the two. The first theme of this article seeks to explain the fundamental characteristics of SCL that have resulted in such an unusually strong reciprocal relationship: (1) Autochthonous nature of SCL; (2) Responsive nature of legislation; and (3) Government control at multiple levels of implementation. The second …

Legal Protection For Recipients Of Foreign Franchise Rights In Indonesia, Sugeng Sugeng

Indonesia Law Review

Due to gobalization, world trade has increased tremendously. Franchising having surged as one of the many business models has the potential to improve the economy of the community. Basically, franchising refers to a method of goods and services distribution to consumers. The party who owns the method is referred to as the franchisor, while the party given the right to use a method the franchisee. This article examines the legal issues that arise in granting license rights from foreign franchisors to franchisees, and how the laws in Indonesia provide protection for the rights and obligations of the parties. The research …

The Mandatory Use Of National Language In Indonesia And Belgium: An Obstacle To International Contracting?, Priskila Pratita Penasthika

Indonesia Law Review

Law Number 24 of 2009 on National Flag, Language, Emblem, and Anthem of Indonesia requires that any contract involving an Indonesian party must be drafted in Indonesian. In applying this law, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia, in Nine AM v. PT Bangun Karya Pratama Lestari judgment, annulled a loan agreement because it was considered to violate the language requirement. Although claiming to strengthen the use of Indonesian language in a contract, this judgment underscores a potential risk of voidance a foreign party face in entering into an agreement drafted in a foreign language when contracting with an …