Contracts Commons^™

Financial Hospitals: Defending The Fed’S Role As A Market Maker Of Last Resort, José Gabilondo

Seattle University Law Review

During the last financial crisis, what should the Federal Reserve (the Fed) have done when lenders stopped making loans, even to borrowers with sterling credit and strong collateral? Because the central bank is the last resort for funding, the conventional answer had been to lend freely at a penalty rate against good collateral, as Walter Bagehot suggested in 1873 about the Bank of England. Acting thus as a lender of last resort, the central bank will keep solvent banks liquid but let insolvent banks go out of business, as they should. The Fed tried this, but when the conventional wisdom …

The Long Road Back: Business Roundtable And The Future Of Sec Rulemaking, Jill E. Fisch

Seattle University Law Review

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has faced a number of challenges in the last few years. Judge Rakoff’s decision in Citigroup, the Madoff scandal, and the Business Roundtable decision are just a few of the developments that have dealt lasting damage to the SEC’s reputation. Critics have scrutinized the agency’s decisionmaking on multiple fronts—from its enforcement policy to the quality of its rulemaking—and the SEC has largely come up short in the analysis. The once-revered top cop of the securities markets has taken a hit, and it is unclear whether it can recover. The Business Roundtable decision …

The Future Of Shareholder Democracy In The Shadow Of The Financial Crisis, Alan Dignam

Seattle University Law Review

This Article argues that the U.K. regulatory response to the financial crisis, in the form of “stewardship” and shareholder engagement, is an error built on a misunderstanding of the key active role shareholders played in the enormous corporate governance failure represented by the banking crisis. Shareholders’ passivity, rather than activity, has characterized the reform perception of the shareholder role in corporate governance. This characterization led to the conclusion that if only they were more active they would be more responsible “stewards” of the corporation. If, as this Article argues, shareholder activity was part of the problem in the banks, then …

Limits Of Disclosure, Steven M. Davidoff, Claire A. Hill

Seattle University Law Review

One big focus of attention, criticism, and proposals for reform in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis has been securities disclosure. Many commentators have emphasized the complexity of the securities being sold, arguing that no one could understand the disclosure. Some observers have noted that disclosures were sometimes false or incomplete. What follows these issues, to some commentators, is that, whatever other lessons we may learn from the crisis, we need to improve disclosure. How should it be improved? Commentators often lament the frailties of human understanding, notably including those of everyday retail investors—people who do not understand or …

The Market For Corporate Control: New Insights From The Financial Crisis In Ireland, Blanaid Clarke

Seattle University Law Review

In an ever-changing legal and economic environment, it is incumbent on us to subject all such premises to scrutiny in order to consider their continued application. This Article considers the effect of the MCC on the management of Irish credit institutions in the run-up to the financial crisis. Part II sets the background by explaining how the MCC has become an integral part of takeover regulation in Europe. The weaknesses in the efficient market hypothesis, which underlie the MCC and are summarized in Part III, appear not to have undermined the theory’s credibility in the minds of public policy makers …

Banking And Competition In Exceptional Times, Brett Christophers

Seattle University Law Review

This Article has two main aims: to provide a critical consideration of this contemporary antitrust “revival” from an explicitly political–economic perspective and to point toward some theoretical resources that might facilitate such an assessment.Part II looks backward at the evolution and application of competition law in the banking sector over the relatively longue durée. In this Part, I invoke the concept of “exception” to understand how antitrust policy has developed, and my chief interlocutors are the perhaps unlikely figures of Giorgio Agamben and Karl Marx. Part III looks forward and considers the central question around which the recent resurgence of …

Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose In Post-Crisis Financial Firms, Christopher M. Bruner

Seattle University Law Review

American “populism” has had a major impact on the development of U.S. corporate governance throughout its history. Specifically, appeals to the perceived interests of average working people have exerted enormous social and political influence over prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose—that is, the aims toward which society expects corporate decision-making to be directed. In this Article, I assess the impact of American populism upon prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose, contrasting its unique expression in the context of financial firms with that arising in other contexts. I then examine its impact upon corporate governance reforms enacted in the wake of the financial …

Shareholders And Social Welfare, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

Seattle University Law Review

This Article addresses the questions of whether and how shareholders matter for social welfare, finding that different and contrasting answers have prevailed during different periods of recent history. Observers in the mid-twentieth century believed that the socioeconomic characteristics of real-world shareholders were highly pertinent to social welfare inquiries. But those observers went on to conclude that there followed no justification for catering to shareholder interest, for shareholders occupied elite social strata. The answer changed during the twentieth century’s closing decades, when observers came to accord the shareholder interest a key structural role in the enhancement of economic efficiency even as …

Central Bank-Led Capitalism?, Andrew Bowman Et Al.

Seattle University Law Review

Since the first acute episode of financial crisis in autumn 2008, the world has manifestly changed in dramatic ways that reinforce skepticism and challenge the old assumptions of political economy. Hence this Article about central banks, whose pivotal role in post-crisis capitalism has not been adequately politically or theoretically addressed in any existing literature and can now be opened up by a conjunctural analysis that recognises uncertainty and mutability. There are several reasons why this is an intellectually and politically interesting task. Central banks have become an object of controversy and public attention after being pivotally involved in crisis management, …

Making Money: Leverage And Private Sector Money Creation, Margaret M. Blair

Seattle University Law Review

Contrary to the beliefs of most macroeconomists, the financial sector in the United States has grown too large in the last few decades as a consequence of financial innovation that has encouraged the use of too much “leverage” (financing with debt) by financial institutions (as well as by consumers and other borrowers). In Part II, I connect the dots between excessive leverage, risk, and financial market volatility. In Part III, I explore the role that the “shadow-banking sector” has had in driving leverage. In Part IV, I explain why leverage at the level of financial institutions matters for the macroeconomy. …

The Governance And Disclosure Of The Firm As An Enterprise Entity, Yuri Biondi

Seattle University Law Review

During recent decades, the rapid pace of financial markets involving new modes of management, governance, and regulation has framed business firms. This corporate drift toward financialization is summarized under the “shareholder value” label. What do financial markets do? Unequivocally, they organize trading on shares that are securities: tradable financial entitlements established by law, which formalize expectations, and claims of financial rents paid by the issuing company. Actually, how continued quotation on share exchanges came to be the barometer of economic or social welfare is a different matter. The latter adoption has required quite a great leap from “the euthanasia of …

Rationales And Designs To Implement An Institutional Big Bang In The Governance Of Global Finance, Emilios Avgouleas

Seattle University Law Review

The colossal challenges facing international finance pertain to both its governance system and its dual utility and speculative functions, which have become ever more intertwined with the advent of financial innovation. In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a number of significant reforms are under way to address the second issue, including additional capital and liquidity requirements for banks, measures to battle interconnectedness in the financial sector, new resolution regimes that would allow banks to fail more easily, and stricter frameworks for bank supervision and monitoring of systemic risk. Yet limited progress has been made with respect to …

Framing Address: A Framework For Analyzing Financial Market Transformation, Steven L. Schwarcz

Seattle University Law Review

The title of this Symposium originally was “Rethinking Financial and Securities Markets.” It is, of course, somewhat presumptuous for scholars to try to rethink financial markets per se. Markets, including financial markets, are driven primarily by supply and demand. But scholars can and should try to influence the future of financial markets by rethinking their fundamental aspects. This Symposium presents work from leading scholars in the fields of law, economics, finance, and accounting. I will try to frame the discussion from the perspectives of these four disciplines. First, however, we need to identify what it is about financial markets that …

Preemption And Choice-Of-Law Coordination, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Larry E. Ribstein

Scholarly Publications

The doctrine treating federal preemption of state law has been plagued by uncertainty and confusion. Part of the problem is that courts purport to interpret congressional intent when often Congress has never considered the particular preemption question at issue. This Article suggests that courts deciding preemption cases should take seriously a commonly articulated rationale for the federalization of law: the need to coordinate applicable legal standards in order to facilitate a national market or to otherwise provide clear guidance to parties regarding the laws that apply to their conduct. In situations where federal law can serve a coordinating function but …

Barras V. Bb&T;: Charting A Clear Path To Apply Concepcion Through A Quagmire Of Divergent Approaches, Jacob Johnson

Mercer Law Review

A recent series of Supreme Court opinions, climaxing in the landmark case AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, has undermined the validity of applying unconscionability to arbitration agreements and generated divergent opinions in lower courts. The saving clause of the Federal Arbitration Act of 1927, 9 U.S.C. § 2 (FAA saving clause), states that "an agreement in writing to submit to arbitration ... shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist ... for the revocation of any contract." Until Concepcion, unconscionability was an established ground for revoking arbitration agreements under the FAA saving clause. In …

Legal Entities As Transferable Bundles Of Contracts, Kenneth Ayotte, Henry Hansmann

Michigan Law Review

The large, modern business corporation is frequently organized as a complex cluster of hundreds of corporate subsidiaries under the common control of a single corporate parent. Our Article provides new theory and supportive evidence to help explain this structure. We focus, in particular on the advantages of subsidiary entities in providing the option to transfer some or all of the firm's contractual rights and obligations in the future. The theory not only sheds light on corporate subsidiaries but also illuminates a basic function of all types of legal entities, from partnerships to nonprofit corporations. We show that when, as is …

Nonmarket Values In Family Businesses, Benjamin Means

William & Mary Law Review

Despite the economic importance of family businesses, legal scholarship has often overlooked their distinctive character. Instead, scholars focus on the chosen form of business organization— partnership, corporation, LLC—and assume that the participants are economically rational actors who seek to maximize their individual preferences. This Article contends that family businesses are extensions of family relationships and that nonmarket values affect their goals and governance choices.

Just as family law scholars have shown that contract principles can be applied to regulate intimate relationships, corporate law scholars should recognize that the intimacy of family life often substitutes for arm’s length bargaining in family …

Nlrb V. Yeshiva University: Teacher Participants In University Policy Formulation Deemed Managerial Under Nlra, Valerie A. Moore

Pepperdine Law Review

The development of a "status quo" for teacher bargaining unit certification was brought to an abrupt halt by the recent Supreme Court Yeshiva decision. The author, in agreement with the majority opinion, examines the development of this "status quo" and the cases leading up to and including the Supreme Court's determination that the Yeshiva faculty were managerial employees and thus exempt from coverage under the National Labor Relations Act. Also, the author illustrates the Supreme Court's unfavorable reaction to the National Labor Relations Board's cursory and inconsistent administrative decisions and opinions.

Nearly A Century In Reserve: Organized Baseball: Collective Bargaining And The Antitrust Exemption Enter The 80'S, Nancy Jean Meissner

Pepperdine Law Review

In her comment, the author fashions a compelling argument for congressional elimination of baseball's exemption from federal antitrust laws. After noting that the exemption had been formulated in 1922 by the Supreme Court, the author explains that it has been abused by baseball club owners to create a virtual monopoly over ballplayers through the reserve system. Although the reserve system's control was somewhat diluted in 1976, with the advent of free agency and collective bargaining, club owners are currently negotiating for mandatory compensation for the loss of free agents. The resultant threat of a player's strike has served to focus …

Oral Will Contracts And The Statute Of Frauds In California, 1896-1980: A Summary And Evaluation , Marc P. Bouret

Pepperdine Law Review

There is no longer any certainty that one can successfully argue that purely oral mutual promises to bequeath property are unenforceable due to the Statute of Frauds. The author traces the trends in the oral will contract area during the past eighty years. He then analyzes various exceptions to the Statute of Frauds which have developed to allow oral will contracts to be enforced during the lifetime of the promisor, or more frequently after his or her death.