Securities Law Commons^™

The Effect Of The Jobs Act On Underwriting Spreads, Usha Rodrigues

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The States In The Regulation Of Private Placements, Manning Gilbert Warren Iii

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Financial Innovation And Flexible Regulation: Destabilizing The Regulatory State, Cristie Ford

All Faculty Publications

The author examines the regulatory failures leading up to the financial crisis, the rise of “flexible regulation,” the effects of financial innovation on regulation, and three different case studies that illuminate the drastic effects of that innovation: the Basel II banking regulations, the Canadian Asset-Backed Commercial Paper market, and the process for writing the Volcker Rule. Finally, she examines the underlying assumptions that should be re-examined in order to create more effective regulatory policies.

National And Coordinated Approaches To Securities Regulation: The Latest Initiatives In Historical Context, David L. Johnston, Kathleen Rockwell, Cristie Ford

All Faculty Publications

If securities regulation is any indication, few countries in the world take their federalism as seriously as Canada does. Notwithstanding an increasingly globalised world, the central reality of Canadian federalism will continue to influence the enactment and enforcement of effective capital markets regulation. In the latest development, on September 8, 2014 the federal government and four participating provinces announced draft legislation, including a new uniform provincial act and new federal legislation, to establish a new Cooperative Capital Markets Regulator (CCMR). Some provinces are strongly opposed, including Québec, which has promised to challenge the proposed regime on constitutional grounds. This chapter …

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

What is Canada’s actual legal model to govern its corporations? Recent landmark judicial decisions indicate Canada is shifting away from an Anglo-American definition of shareholder primacy. Yet the Canadian securities commissions have become increasingly influential in the governance sphere, and by nature are shareholder-focused. Shareholders’ rights have increased well beyond what was ever contemplated by Canadian corporate laws, and the issue of greater shareholder vs. board control has now become the topic of live debate. The future of Canada's overall model seems to rest on what will be more compelling: the constancy of the corporate statutes and trajectory of the …

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance: Where Do Shareholders Really Stand?, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

This feature article in the Director Journal summarizes the findings from the report, "A Canadian Model of Corporate Governance: Insights from Canada's Leading Legal Practitioners," produced for the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research and the Institute of Corporate Directors (also available on SSRN).

In the report, interviews were conducted with 32 leading senior legal practitioners across Canada to opine on the fundamental principles that are driving the development of Canadian corporate governance. The report found that Canadian common law has made the process of considering stakeholders in the "best interests of the corporation" more overt, well beyond what is assumed …

Is The Independent Director Model Broken?, Roberta Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is The Independent Director Model Broken?, Roberta Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Obligations And Potential Liabilities Of Attorneys In Public And Private Offerings, William O. Fisher

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter examines issues that attorneys face when performing services for developing companies, with particular focus on private offerings and the initial public offering ("IPO"). In private and public offerings, both the securities laws and the issuer's interests mandate that the offering document present full and fair disclosure of the issuer's business and financial condition. In assisting an issuer, attorneys share this goal; and can face liability if they err when providing services in such a transaction.

The Governance Structure Of Shadow Banking, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Common Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, Samuel W. Buell, Deborah A. Demott, James D. Cox, Ernest A. Young, Ann Lipton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Towards A “Rule Of Law” Approach To Restructuring Sovereign Debt, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Governance Structure Of Shadow Banking: Rethinking Assumptions About Limited Liability, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

In an earlier article, I argued that shadow banking — the provision of financial services and products outside of the traditional banking system, and thus without the need for bank intermediation between capital markets and the users of funds — is so radically transforming finance that regulatory scholars need to rethink their basic assumptions. This article attempts to rethink the corporate governance assumption that owners of firms should always have their liability limited to the capital they have invested. In the relatively small and decentralized firms that dominate shadow banking, equity investors tend to be active managers. Limited liability gives …

Bypassing Congress On Federal Debt: Executive Branch Options To Avoid Default, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

Even a “technical” default by the United States on its debt, such as a delay in paying principal or interest due to Congress’s failure to raise the federal debt ceiling, could have serious systemic consequences, destroying financial markets and undermining job creation, consumer spending, and economic growth. The ongoing political gamesmanship between Congress and the Executive Branch has been threatening — and even if temporarily resolved, almost certainly will continue to threaten — such a default. The various options discussed in the media for averting a default have not been legally and pragmatically viable. This article proposes new options for …

The Ban Has Lifted: Now Is The Time To Change The Accredited-Investor Standard, Larissa Lee

Utah Law Review

Lifting the ban on general advertising and general solicitation will ultimately change how emerging companies receive funding. With greater access to previously untapped investors, more new businesses will be able to get on their feet and be successful. This success depends on the regulation of these offerings to ensure they are free of fraud and that investors maintain confidence in the market.

As the standard currently stands, it is likely that the removal of the ban will result in a regulatory gap, which may take advantage of several investors. The accredited investor standard should be changed to reflect not only …

The Self-Regulation Of Investment Bankers, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

As broker-dealers, investment bankers must register with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) and comply with its rules, including the requirement to “observe high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade.” As the self-regulatory body for broker-dealers, FINRA functions as the equivalent of the self-regulatory bodies governing other professionals, such as lawyers and accountants. Unlike the self-regulation of these professionals, however, the self-regulation of investment bankers has thus far attracted scant scholarly attention.

This Article evaluates the effectiveness of this self-regulatory system in deterring investment bankers’ misconduct. Based on a hand-collected data set of every disciplinary …

Financial Conglomerates And Information Barriers, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

The organizational structure of financial conglomerates gives rise to fundamental regulatory challenges. Legally, the structure subjects firms to multiple, incompatible client duties. Practically, the structure provides firms with a huge reservoir of non-public information that they may use to further their self-interests, potentially harming clients and third parties. The primary regulatory response to these challenges and a core feature of the financial regulatory architecture is the information barrier or Chinese wall. Rather than examine measures to strengthen information barriers, to date legal scholars have focused on the circumstances in which to deny them legal effect, while economists have focused on …

The Role Of Comparative Law In Shaping Corporate Statutory Reforms, Marco Ventoruzzo

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay discusses how comparative law played and plays a role in the statutory development of corporate laws. The influence of laws of other systems on the development of statutory law is common, explicit, and represents a tradition that accompanied legal reforms since the very beginning of the development of legislation.

Focusing on modern corporate law, I argue (but the argument could be extended to many other legal fields) that it is necessary to distinguish two basic ways in which comparative law influences legal reforms in one particular jurisdiction. The first one is through regulatory competition among different systems. In …

Does Board Independence Reduce The Cost Of Debt?, Michael Bradley, Dong Chen

Faculty Scholarship

Using the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the associated change in listing standards as a natural experiment, we find that while board independence decreases the cost of debt when credit conditions are strong or leverage low, it increases the cost of debt when credit conditions are poor or leverage high. We also document that independent directors set corporate policies that increase firm risk. These results suggest that, acting in the interest of shareholders, independent directors are increasingly costly to bondholders with the intensification of the agency conflict between these two stakeholders.

Santa Anna And His Black Eagle: The Origins Of Pari Passu?, Benjamin Chabot, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

One of the most debated issues in international finance is the meaning of the pari passu clause in sovereign bonds. The clause is ubiquitous; it is in almost every single foreign-law sovereign bond out there. Yet, almost no one seems to agree on its meaning. One way to cut the Gordian knot is to track down the origins of the clause. Modern lawyers may have simply copied the clause from the documents of their predecessors without understanding its meaning. But surely the people who first drafted the clause knew what it meant. Four enterprising students at Duke Law School may …