Securities Law Commons^™

Glass Half-Empty Approach To Securities Regulation, Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

In this Article, I propose a novel approach, which I call the “glass-half-empty” approach, to analyze the appropriate boundaries of securities regulation. This approach assumes a baseline of “full” regulation and then analyzes which regulations should be stripped away because the costs exceed the benefits. This is the opposite of the traditional approach, which assumes a baseline of zero regulation, identifies a market failure, and then weighs the costs and benefits of regulatory intervention.

Although, in theory, the two approaches should reach the same conclusions about the appropriate bounds of securities regulation, the glass-half-empty approach yields new insights because it …

Whistle While You Work: Interpreting Retaliation Remedies Available To Whistleblowers In The Dodd-Frank Act, Max Birmingham

Florida A & M University Law Review

This Article asserts that judicial activism occurs when a court goes beyond the plain meaning of the text that is plain and unambiguous, to promulgate its politics. This Article does not make the argument nor infer that this is the sole definition of judicial activism. Rather, this Article is narrowing the scope by enumerating a specific act that falls within the category of judicial activism.

This argument proceeds as follows. Part I provides context of judicial activism. Part II analyzes how various courts have interpreted the statute, and whether the interpretation is consistent with canons of construction. Part III assesses …

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Contextual Approach To Fiduciary Duties Owed To Preferred Stockholders From Venture Capital To Public Preferred To Family Business, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Faculty Publications

This Article examines whether corporations should owe fiduciary duties to its preferred stockholders as preferred stockholders across all settings of preferred stock holding. In one context, sophisticated venture capitalists purchase preferred stock after carefully negotiating the stock price, control over the corporate governance, and other key stipulations by contract. Additionally, because the initial preferred stockholder could protect its interests through staged financing or board control, the preferred stockholder might not discount the stock even if it lacked protection since the other protective devices made the lack of such protections inconsequential so the initial holders won’t pay for these added fiduciary …

Risk Of Regulatory Arbitrage: A Response To "Securities Regulation In Virtual Space", Wendy Gerwick Couture

Articles

In Securities Regulation in Virtual Space, Eric C. Chaffee explores the potential applicability of the securities laws to virtual transactions based on virtual activity and argues that, although many of these transactions likely qualify as “investment contracts” under S.E.C. v. W.J. Howey Co., they should be excluded under the context clause because, among other reasons, application of the securities laws would stifle creativity within this innovative space. This Response proposes a reframing of the Howey test as a response to the risk of regulatory arbitrage, argues that the context clause should only exclude transactions that do not pose such …

The Rule Of Lenity And The Enforcement Of The Federal Securities Laws, Anna Currier

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Balance: A Critical Review Of Private Placement Regulations Of The United States And South Korea, Daeil Kim

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Two main objectives of the securities offering regulation are to protect investors from frauds and to facilitate capital formation. Balancing these two objectives is a difficult task particularly for the private placement regulation. The primary focus of this study is to assess whether the current private placement regulations of the United States and South Korea are properly balancing these two objectives.

First, this study broadly reviews securities offering regulations and the historical developments of the private placement regulations of the United States and South Korea, and compares the current regulations of both countries. For the U.S. private placement regulation, this …

Regulation A-Plus’S Identity Crisis: A One-Size-Fits-None Approach To Capital Formation, Zachary Naidich

Brooklyn Law Review

This note considers whether, and in what ways, Regulation A-Plus will change how businesses access growth capital. It concludes that Regulation A-Plus is a largely unnecessary addition to the already existing range of funding options. The Regulation is poised to change how firms access capital but is unlikely to increase total access or fundraising. Further, this change is unlikely to promote financial health. The note ultimately concludes that regulators should focus on improving existing mechanisms and not attempt to introduce a new and unnecessary one.

Clicks And Tricks: How Computer Hackers Avoid 10b-5 Liability, Ryan H. Gilinson

Brooklyn Law Review

This note argues that computer hackers who sell inside information instead of trading on it themselves, referred to in the note as hacker-sellers, avoid liability under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5. Rule 10b-5 criminalizes the use of a manipulative or deceptive device “in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.” Hacker-sellers fall outside the scope of this rule for two reasons. First, the type of hacking employed by hacker-sellers is not always “deceptive,” and only the forms of hacking which deceive the computer into thinking an authorized user is seeking access are …

An Exception To The Derivative Rule: Allowing Mutual Fund Investors To Bring Suits Directly, Jamie D. Kurtz

Brooklyn Law Review

Mutual funds differ greatly from traditional corporations in the way they are formed and operated. Despite these differences, courts apply the same rules for derivative shareholder litigation to both types of entities. While these rules make sense and were mostly created with corporations in mind, courts have generally been unwilling to consider mutual funds’ unique characteristics in determining whether to allow direct litigation from shareholders. This note explores those unique characteristics and the usual policy reasons for requiring derivative litigation. It concludes that in most cases these unique characteristics make a derivative suit nearly impossible to sustain. Further, the normal …

The Shadow Of Free Enterprise: The Unconstitutionality Of The Securities & Exchange Commission's Administrative Law Judges, Linda Jellum

Articles

Six years ago, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), for the first time giving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the power to seek monetary penalties through its in-house adjudication. The SEC already had the power to seek such penalties in federal court. With the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC's enforcement division could now choose between an adjudication before an SEC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) or a civil action before an Article III judge. With this new choice, the SEC realized a significant home-court advantage. For example, in 2014, the SEC's enforcement division prevailed …

To Fund Or Not To Fund: Deficiencies In The Wisconsin Crowdfunding Act That Hamper The Viaiblity Of Intrastate Crowdfunding, Andrew S. Hovestol

Marquette Law Review

"Crowdfunding," which is described as "the practice of . . . soliciting [financial] contributions from a large number of people especially from the online community," has recently taken the financial world by storm through the advent of websites like "Kickstarter," "Fundable," "IndieGogo," "Razoo," and "Appbackr." Such websites provide a marketplace whereby companies, small businesses, and entrepreneurs looking for startup capital can solicit funding from individual investors. The concept is relatively straightforward: project creators initiate a profile that includes informative bits like short videos, a brief synopsis of the project, and images to further showcase the project. Each project has a …

Preface, Robin H. Huang, Nicholas C. Howson

Book Chapters

This volume collects the fruits of an unprecedented international academic conference, ‘Public and Private Enforcement of Company Law and Securities Regulation – China and the World’, which was held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in December 2014 and convened by the Centre for Financial Regulation and Economic Development (CFRED) of the Faculty of Law of CUHK, the University of Michigan Law School and the Lieberthal Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. The aim of the conference was to gather, in one place and at one time, some of the world’s top academic specialists, …

Conflicts & Capital Allocation, Benjamin P. Edwards

Scholarly Works

The regulatory structure for financial advice now tolerates incentives motivating financial advisors to manipulate and deceive retail investors. While scholars thus far have argued for ways to improve investor protections, the literature has largely ignored how these flawed incentives affect the economy.

This Article contends that these flawed incentives cause financial advisors to negatively affect capital allocation throughout the overall economy.

This Article draws on literature about manipulation and deception in principal-agent relationships to show how conflicts of interest cause the market for financial advisor services to generate excessive intermediation, driving harms to the real economy. This Article uses case …

Lucia V. Sec: The Debate And Decision Concerning The Constitutionality Of Sec Administrative Proceedings, Elizabeth Wang

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Overlooked Daisy Chain Problem In Salman, Franklin A. Gevurtz

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

In Salman v. United States, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict with United States v. Newman as to when corporate insiders receive sufficient personal benefit from making gifts of inside information to make the tip and consequent trade illegal. This Essay explores an overlooked aspect of these cases, the “daisy chain problem,” which involves how the personal benefit element for illegal tipping applies to the subsequent tips that occur when the recipient of information from the corporate insider, in turn, passes the information on to others. This daisy chain problem could potentially distinguish the facts of Salman …

A Big Gap Between ‘Law In Books’ And ‘Law In Action’ And "A New Taxonomy Of Enforcement Strategies", Robin H. Huang, Nicholas C. Howson

Other Publications

Any attempt to comprehensively analyse the enforcement of corporate law and securities regulation is difficult, not only because there are so many distinct national systems in play, but also because, we need to examine both formal enforcement mechanisms and the way in which such mechanisms are applied in practice. If nothing else, the expert analyses presented in the foregoing chapters of this book confirm that with respect to enforcement issues a rather large gap does exist between what Roscoe Pound memorably called ‘law in books’ and ‘law in action’.

Insider Trading Flaw: Toward A Fraud-On-The-Market Theory And Beyond, Kenneth R. Davis

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Legal Analysis On Enterprises Overseas Fundraising -- A Comparison Between The U.S. Market And The Taiwanese Market, Ke Ho

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990’s, Taiwan’s government has made efforts to upgrade economic development by attraction more foreign enterprises to enter the domestic capital market. However, in the early 2000s, statistics indicated that the number of such new enterprise listings in Taiwan actually decreased. Some believe a very important factor in the decrease to the number of new listings in Taiwan is the current regulatory framework’s lack of flexibility. It is assumed that the regulatory intensity for foreign enterprises is very high. In order to review this intensity on the foreign issuer, this dissertation presents research on the law regulating a foreign …

How Do Llc Owners Contract Around Default Statutory Protections?, Peter Molk

UF Law Faculty Publications

Limited liability companies are built on the idea of contractual freedom. Unlike other business organization forms, most owner protections apply only by default to LLCs, which are free to waive or modify them as desired. This freedom promises economic efficiency if parties are sophisticated but raises the potential for opportunism by relatively more sophisticated managers and majority owners. While companies ranging from small landscape firms to Chrysler and Fidelity organize as LLCs, remarkably little is known about whether or how LLCs use this contractual flexibility. I analyze the operating agreements of 283 privately owned LLCs organized under Delaware and New …

The Shadow Of Free Enterprise: The Unconstitutionality Of The Securities & Exchange Commission's Administrative Law Judges, Linda D. Jellum, Moses M. Tincher

SMU Law Review

Six years ago, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), for the first time giving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the power to seek monetary penalties through its in-house adjudication. The SEC already had the power to seek such penalties in federal court. With the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC’s enforcement division could now choose between an adjudication before an SEC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) or a civil action before an Article III judge. With this new choice, litigants contended that the SEC realized a significant home-court advantage. For example, the Wall Street Journal …