Securities Law Commons^™

Comments: The Securities And Exchange Commission's Proposed Regulations Under The Crowdfund Act Strike A Necessary Balance Between The Burden Of Disclosure Placed On Issuers Of Securities And Meaningful Protection For Unsophisticated Investors, Stuart Evan Smith

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Liability And Admission Of Wrongdoing In Public Enforcement Of Law, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Some judges and scholars have questioned the social value of the standard form in which the Securities and Exchange Commission settles its corporate enforcement actions, including the agency’s use of essentially unreviewed consent decrees that include no admission of liability or wrongdoing. This essay for a symposium on SEC enforcement provides an analysis of the deterrent effects of the three main components of settlements in public enforcement of law: liability, admission, and remedy. The conclusions are the following. All three components have beneficial deterrent effects. Cost considerations nonetheless justify some settlements that dispense with liability or admission, or even both. …

The Governance Structure Of Shadow Banking, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Plugging Leaks And Lowering Levees In The Federal Government: Practical Solutions For Securities Trading Based On Political Intelligence, Donna M. Nagy, Richard Painter

Articles by Maurer Faculty

From its founding, the federal government of the United States has been a potential gold mine for nonpublic market-moving information. By selectively disclosing this information to securities traders outside the government (or to persons who advise them), federal officials can substantially privilege certain wealthy or otherwise well-connected investors over ordinary investors in the securities market. The trading profits that can be derived from the use of this material nonpublic government information are often tremendous.

This disparity of access to government information may be unfair. But absent an identifiable personal benefit on the part of the government insider, neither the selective …

The Importance Of Conducting Thorough Investigations Of Confidential Witnesses In Securities Fraud Litigation, Leigh Handelman Smollar

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Article examines the use of confidential witnesses (“CWs”) in investigating and substantiating securities fraud claims. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act has placed a heavy burden on plaintiffs at the pleading stage, which has caused plaintiffs to perform preliminary investigations and seek confidential information as a basis for their allegations in the complaint. Testimony of CWs is often the centerpiece of the evidence substantiating plaintiffs’ securities fraud claims. As a result, the investigation conducted prior to filing an amended complaint has become a central issue in the realm of securities litigation, subject to attack by the defendants. This Article …

Class-Action Tolling, Federal Common Law, And Securities Statutes Of Repose: A Recommendation, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Essay focuses on a narrow, but potentially outcome-determinative, question: Does the filing of a securities class action toll the three-year outer time limit applicable to claims under sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act and the five-year outer time limit applicable to claims under section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, such that potential class members—after a decision on class certification—can assert an individual federal action, even if those outer time limits would have elapsed absent tolling? There is currently a circuit split on this issue, with the Tenth Circuit answering “yes” and the Second Circuit answering “no.” …

Recanting Confidential Witnesses In Securities Litigation, Gideon Mark

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Article examines the contentious and recurring issue of how courts should handle confidential witnesses in securities litigation who recant the information attributed to them in complaints or deny that they ever provided such information to plaintiffs’ counsel and/or investigators. The use by plaintiffs of confidential witnesses has become ubiquitous in recent years, as a primary unintended effect of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. That legislation raised the bar for pleading securities fraud and established an automatic stay of all discovery and other proceedings during the pendency of a motion to dismiss, absent application of one of …

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act And Particularity: Why Are Some Courts In An Alternate Universe?, Charles W. Murdock

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

The focus of this Article is to suggest that the judicial decision-making process is often not as rational and objective as we would like to believe. Bias often affects the decision making of judges, sometimes to the extent that it appears that the writer of the opinion is living in an alternate universe.

As we progress professionally, and become more steeped in our biases, we sometimes move toward creating a world that exists in our heads and has little relation to the “real” world. While this assertion will be developed in the context of courts’ interpreting “particularly” in the Private …

Pleading Securities Fraud Claims: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Sharon Nelles, Hilary Huber

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of The Prefiling Phase For Securities-Fraud Litigation, John M. Wunderlich

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

The pleading burden that governs securities-fraud litigation is significantly higher than those standards that govern traditional civil cases. The heightened pleading burden applicable to securities cases has transformed the motion to dismiss into something like summary judgment. In fact, to contend with this heightened pleading burden, plaintiffs typically must spend more time in the prefiling phase gathering sufficient, reliable evidence of securities fraud.

With almost two decades of litigation under the securities laws’ heightened pleading burden, empirical studies are revealing that certain kinds of evidence are more likely to defeat a motion to dismiss than others. But dismissal statistics and …

Opening The Floodgates Of Small Customer Claims In Finra Arbitration: Finra V. Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., Teresa J. Verges

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

When the Supreme Court held over twenty-five years ago that customers could be compelled to arbitrate their federal securities claims against their brokers, the vast majority of financial firms in the U.S. inserted pre-dispute arbitration provisions ("PDAAs") in agreements with their customers requiring them to arbitrate any claims arising out of their brokerage relationship. Since Sheerson/ Am. Express, Inc. v. McMahon, investor advocacy groups, scholars, and legislators have called for Congressional action to eliminate mandatory arbitration in securities cases, but the closest Congress has come to such elimination has been to punt this issue to the Securities and Exchange …

An Introduction To The Symposium And An Examination Of Morrison’S Impact On The Presumption Against Extraterritoriality, Franklin A. Gevurtz

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Downstream Securities Regulation, Anita K. Krug

Articles

Securities regulation wears two hats. Its “upstream” side governs firms in connection with their obtaining financing in the securities markets. That is, it *1590 regulates firms' and issuers' offers and sales of securities, whether in public offerings to retail investors or in private offerings to institutional investors. Its “downstream” side, by contrast, governs financial services providers, who assist with investors' activities in those markets. Their services include providing advice regarding securities investments, as investment advisers do; aggregating investors' assets for purposes of enabling those investors to invest their assets collectively, as mutual funds do; and acting as “middlemen” between buyers …

Crowdfunding's Impact On Start-Up Ip Strategy, Sean M. O'Connor

Articles

This Paper proceeds in Part I by reviewing the crowdfunding landscape and its potential benefits for start-ups, especially with regard to IP strategies. Part II examines the provisions of the JOBS Act and argues that the disclosure requirements of the CROWDFUND Act title will make the latter less attractive than other start-up financing options and may negatively affect start-ups’ IP strategies, in part by risking the disclosure of enabling aspects of patentable inventions.

Part III explores issues arising from the widespread involvement of many potentially unsophisticated investors who have no connection to the start-up. This contrasts with current unsophisticated investors …

Speculative Tech: The Bitcoin Legal Quagmire & The Need For Legal Innovation, Paul H. Farmer Jr.

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Fee-Shifting Bylaw And Charter Provisions: Can They Apply In Federal Court? – The Case For Preemption, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In the first months after a decision of the Delaware Supreme Court upholding a fee-shifting bylaw under which the unsuccessful plaintiff shareholder was required to reimburse all defendants for their legal and other expenses in the litigation, some 24 public companies adopted a similar provision – either by means of a board-adopted bylaw or by placing such a provision in their certificate of incorporation (in the case of companies undergoing an IPO). In effect, private ordering is introducing a one-sided version of the “loser pays” rules. Indeed, as drafted, these provisions typically require a plaintiff who is not completely successful …

Extraterritorial Avoidance Actions: Lessons From Madoff, Edward R. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

The Madoff case continues to provide fertile ground for testing boundaries of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (Code). In July 2014, Judge Rakoff issued an important decision regarding the extraterritorial scope of the Code’s avoidance rules. The Trustee for the Madoff Estate, Irving Picard, sought to recover cash withdrawn by “feeder funds.” These funds pooled customer assets, invested them in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (Madoff Securities), withdrew proceeds from the investment prior to Madoff’s SIPA filing, and distributed the proceeds to customers before the funds themselves collapsed. The funds are located abroad: one, Fairfield Sentry, is a British Virgin Islands …

The Improbable Birth And Conceivable Death Of The Securities Arbitration Clinic, Jill Gross

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

This Article explores the birth, life, and possible death of SACs in the United States. Part II of this Article describes the history of the securities arbitration clinic in the United States. Part III describes how a SAC operates and how SAC students help investors. Part IV reviews the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of a SAC, and addresses the reluctance of many law schools to embrace this type of clinic. Part V concludes by predicting whether these clinics have a future in light of the modern challenges to clinical legal education.

The Improbable Birth And Conceivable Death Of The Securities Arbitration Clinic, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the birth, life, and possible death of securities arbitration clinics (SACs) in the United States. Part II of this Article describes the history of the securities arbitration clinic in the United States. Part III describes how a SAC operates and how SAC students help investors. Part IV reviews the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of a SAC, and addresses the reluctance of many law schools to embrace this type of clinic. Part V concludes by predicting whether these clinics have a future in light of the modern challenges to clinical legal education.

Pleading Securities Fraud Claims--Only Part Of The Story, Marc I. Steinberg

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.