Securities Law Commons^™

Unintended Consequences, Loopholes, And Gibberish: Why There Are Still Securities Act Class Actions In State Courts, Brian Elzweig

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article examines Congress’s decades-long attempt to ensure that securities class action lawsuits of national importance are litigated in federal courts. The intent is limiting strike suits. Congress attempted to curtail strike suits through the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (“PSLRA”). The PSLRA required heightened pleading requirements to ensure the validity of federal securities class actions. Instead of solving the dilemma, plaintiffs circumvented the PSLRA by bringing fraud cases as state law claims. To combat the circumvention of the PSLRA, Congress enacted the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (“SLUSA”). SLUSA federally preempted state law claims based on …

Informed Trading And Cybersecurity Breaches, Joshua Mitts, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Cybersecurity has become a significant concern in corporate and commercial settings, and for good reason: a threatened or realized cybersecurity breach can materially affect firm value for capital investors. This paper explores whether market arbitrageurs appear systematically to exploit advance knowledge of such vulnerabilities. We make use of a novel data set tracking cybersecurity breach announcements among public companies to study trading patterns in the derivatives market preceding the announcement of a breach. Using a matched sample of unaffected control firms, we find significant trading abnormalities for hacked targets, measured in terms of both open interest and volume. Our results …

Disrupting Secured Transactions, Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) governs secured transactions in personal property in all fifty states and has been lauded as “the most successful commercial statute ever.” But while Article 9 has facilitated commerce and economic growth, it remains complicated and inefficient in numerous respects. Its weaknesses are well known but have been considered necessary evils, accepted because no better approaches were available. But just as the UCC was motivated initially by the idea of streamlining the law to accommodate modern commerce, now that goal should motivate revision of the UCC itself.

This Article proposes to remove and …

Beyond The Numbers: Substantive Gender Diversity In Boardrooms, Yaron G. Nili

Indiana Law Journal

The push for gender diversity on public companies’ boards has been gaining traction. Advocacy groups, institutional investors, regulators, and companies themselves have all recognized the need for more diverse boards. However, gender parity is still absent from most public companies’ boards, and a significant number of companies still have no women on their boards.

Current public and academic discourse has focused on the number of women serving on the board and their percentage compared to men as the litmus test for gender diversity. However, academic studies and the public push for more diversity have mostly failed to account for another …

Derivative Suit Under The Saudi Companies Law: Theory And Best Practice, Ahmed Saeed Khabti

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Saudi Arabia has been focused on diversification of its economy and attracting foreign investors. Countries that provide strong shareholder protection are more likely to attract foreign investors. However, there is a need for greater protection of minority shareholders in Saudi Arabia. This is because Saudi’s companies law fails to equip minority shareholders with adequate protective rights. A current issue with the new Saudi companies law can be linked to derivative suit, which is very important for both foreign investors and local investors. Derivative suit in Saudi Arabia is very limited and difficult to pursue because under article 79 of Saudi …

United States Supreme Court Surveys: 2017 Term: Digital Realty Trust V. Somers: Whistleblowers And Corporate Retaliation, Susan B. Heyman

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Undoing A Deal With The Devil: Some Challenges For Congress's Proposed Reform Of Insider Trading Plans, John P. Anderson

Journal Articles

The adoption of Rule 10b5-1 was, in a manner of speaking, a deal with the devil that the SEC and some lawmakers now appear to regret having made. The problem is that, as is often the case with such a deal, it cannot be easily undone. I identify challenges presented by the restrictions on Trading Plan use that Congress has proposed in the Corporate Insiders Act. In light of these challenges, I argue that effective Trading Plan reform cannot be accomplished by simply restricting the use of Trading Plans while leaving Rule 10b5-1(b)'s awareness test in place. If there is …

Blockchain Symposium Introduction: Overview And Historical Introduction, Brian Ray

Cleveland State Law Review

Imagine a world where human drivers can access on-demand micro-insurance contracts tailored to cover only the actual time spent driving. How about a secure, decentralized identity system that allows individuals to purchase a vehicle and obtain insurance without sharing unnecessary private information exposing it to cyber criminals? Take that a step further and consider a system of driverless cars that transact with autonomous gas stations and take payments directly from passengers. These are some of the fascinating applications that blockchain technology could enable. But these applications give rise to significant technical, social, and legal questions, all of which we explored …

Institutional Investors As Short Sellers?, Peter Molk, Frank Partnoy

UF Law Faculty Publications

Short selling has the potential to improve the efficiency and fairness of equity markets. Yet institutional investors face both private and regulatory constraints to short selling. We document these obstacles and consider the potential benefits of removing them. We advocate that institutional investors engage in more short selling as part of overall net-long equity strategies, such as a leveraged passive equity index combined with an actively managed short position of a size comparable to the amount of leverage.

Insider Trading Framework In United States And Egyptian Stock Markets, Elsayed Eldaydamony

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the law of insider trading in both the American and Egyptian legal systems. It seeks to pinpoint the policy rationale behind prohibiting insider trading, the theories of civil enforcement and criminalization, and the concept of tipping in the United States. It also analyzes the express statutory prohibition under Egyptian law. Furthermore, it explains the doctrinal link between securities fraud and insider trading in the U.S. as well as the enforcement mechanisms in place at the SEC, the NYSE, and the NASDAQ. It also surveys the surveillance authority of the Egyptian Financial Regularity Authority and of the Egyptian …

First Principles For Forum Provisions, Daniel B. Listwa, Bradley J. Polivka

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

In this Essay, the authors argue that the Delaware Chancery Court's opinion in Sciabacucchi v. Salzberg, which appeals to territoriality as a decisive “first principle,” is deeply misguided. The notion that each state’s legislative jurisdiction is bounded by its territorial limits is a formalist and arbitrary notion that has been broadly rejected by various jurisdictions, including Delaware. Moreover, an opinion truly grounded in “first principles” would take comity—the basic framework for choice of law in the early Republic—as its lodestar, necessitating a functionally and strategically sensitive approach to determining the validity of the federal forum provisions. In this case, comity …

Three Against Two: On The Difference Between Property And Contract And The Example Of Deposit Accounts In Bankruptcy, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

Articles

In Citizen's Bank v. Strumpf (1995), Justice Scalia announced that deposit accounts are not "property". Five years later, the Uniform Commercial Code was amended to make deposit accounts collateral for the depositary bank maintaining the account, thereby crowding the field previously occupied by the common law right of setoff. Security interests attach to personal "property." Security interests attach to deposit accounts. Deposit accounts, by syllogistic logic, are property. Does this mean that the UCC has overruled the Supreme Court? We argue not. A deposit account is a mere contract in the two-person universe that contract law presupposes. A deposit account …

Myth Of The Attorney Whistleblower, Carliss N. Chatman

SMU Law Review

Notwithstanding the political grandstanding and legal regimes put in place to prevent the next Enron, this article explores whether attorney whistleblower provisions provided in the Standards of Professional Con- duct for Attorneys Appearing and Practicing Before the Commission in the Representation of an Issuer and in the Model Rules of Professional Con- duct are effective. When faced with attorney involvement in Enron, Congress passed § 307 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (Sarbanes), which required the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to amend its standards governing the conduct of attorneys practicing before the SEC. In response, the SEC and the American …

Bridging The Information Gap: How Access To Land Contracts Can Serve Community Rights, Lara Wallis, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Land contracts (also known as investor-state contracts, or concession agreements) show what commitments a forestry, farming or renewable energy company has made and what the government has said the company can do on the land. These promises define the positive and harmful effects the company’s project could have on community members’ livelihoods and human rights, and on the environment.

Accessing land contracts is a crucial strategy for local organizations. This briefing note explains how local organizations can use land contracts and the Open Land Contracts repository (OpenLandContracts.org) to help communities to:

• Understand company and government obligations related to a company …

Reputational And Integrity Due Diligence On Investors, Kroll, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Before deciding to invest, companies and investors will perform background research on the uncertainties and risks associated with the proposed investment. For natural resource projects, there are risks around geology, market and price developments, construction delays, operations, regulatory changes, political disruptions, and reputational issues. Feasibility studies and due diligence assessments aim to better understand these risks, reduce uncertainty where possible and be better prepared to manage them.

Governments too should understand the risks that are associated with the proposed investments and get to know the investors before entering into negotiations or signing contracts. This is particularly important for long-term agreements …

Shareholders United?, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

Securities regulation has a way of crossing into other lanes. What public companies do is substantive regulation. How they govern themselves while doing it-or more importantly, how they disclose it-is securities regulation. So it is no surprise that the perennial concern over regulating money in politics should also become a question of federal securities regulation. The Shareholders United Act (the "Act")-passed by the House of Representatives as part of House Bill 1, an early, major piece of legislation in the 116th Congress-does just that. The Act would require that before engaging in political spending, public companies poll shareholders on how …

Securities Disclosure As Soundbite: The Case Of Ceo Pay Ratios, Steven A. Bank, George S. Georgiev

Faculty Articles

This Article analyzes the history, design, and effectiveness of the highly controversial CEO pay ratio disclosure rule, which went into effect in 2018. Based on a regulatory mandate contained in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the rule requires public companies to disclose the ratio between CEO pay and median worker pay as part of their annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The seven-year rulemaking process was politically contentious and generated a level of public engagement that was virtually unprecedented in the long history of the SEC disclosure regime. The SEC sought to minimize compliance costs by providing …

The Regulatory Accountability Act Loses Steam But The Trump Executive Order On Alj Selection Upturned 71 Years Of Practice, Jeffrey Lubbers

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Enduring Distinction Between Business Entities And Security Interests, Ofer Eldar, Andrew Verstein

Faculty Scholarship

What are business entities for? What are security interests for? The prevailing answer in legal scholarship is that both bodies of law exist to partition assets for the benefit of designated creditors. But if both bodies of law partition assets, then what distinguishes them? In fact, these bodies of law appear to be converging as increasing flexibility irons out any differences. Indeed, many legal products, such as securitization vehicles, insurance products known as captive insurance, and mutual funds, employ entities to create distinct asset pools. Moreover, recent legal innovations, such as “protected cells,” which were created to facilitate such products, …

Security For Expense Statutes: Easing Shareholder Hopelessness?, Miriam R. Albert

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The quintessential derivative suit is a suit by a shareholder to force the corporation to sue a manager for fraud, which is admittedly an awkward and likely unpleasant endeavor and, according to the Supreme Court, a “remedy born of stockholder helplessness.” Where ownership and control of an enterprise are vested in the same population, the need for a corrective mechanism like a derivative suit is greatly lessened because the owner/managers’ self-interests will arguably guide managerial conduct. But where ownership and control are in separate hands, the incentives change, and managerial conduct may not conform to the owners’ views of the …