Securities Law Commons^™

Evaluating Stock-Trading Practices And Their Regulation, Merritt B. Fox, Kevin S. Haeberle

Faculty Scholarship

High-frequency trading, dark pools, and the practices associated with them have come under tremendous scrutiny lately, giving rise to much hot rhetoric. Missing from the discussion, however, is a principled, comprehensive standard for evaluating such practices and the law that governs them. This Article fills that gap by providing a general framework for making serious normative judgments about stock-trading behavior and its regulation. In particular, we argue that such practices and laws should be evaluated with an eye to the secondary trading market’s impact on four main aspects of our economy: the use of existing productive capacity, the allocation of …

Submission On The Draft General Comment On “State Obligations Under The Icescr In The Context Of Business Activities”, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In January 2017 CCSI made a submission to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, regarding its draft General Comment on “State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Context of Business Activities.” CCSI’s submission focused on: (1) host and home states’ obligations as they relate to international investment agreements (IIAs); (2) extraterritorial obligations in the context of outward investment; and (3) state obligations related to corruption issues.

In the submission, CCSI emphasized that states must ensure that existing treaties do not generate conflicts between obligations owed under IIAs and the Covenant (in …

Guide To Land Contracts: Forestry Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts and forestry projects can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. To assist non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository, CCSI has developed a Guide to Land Contracts: Forestry Projects.

This Guide, prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, aims to assist the Open Land Contracts repository users in unpacking the technical provisions and language typically found in forestry contracts in order to better understand the contracts and the potential implications of …

Differing Perceptions? Market Practice And The Evolution Of Foreign Sovereign Immunity, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The 20th century witnessed a transformative, “tectonic” shift in international law, from “absolute” to “restrictive” theories of sovereign immunity. As conventionally understood, however, this dramatic transformation represented only a shift in the default rule. Under absolute immunity, national courts could not hear lawsuits and enforce judgments against a foreign sovereign without its consent. Under restrictive immunity, foreign sovereigns were presumptively not immune when they engaged in commercial acts. We demonstrate that market practices undermine this conventional understanding. Using an extensive, two-century data set of contracts between foreign governments and private creditors, we show that contracting parties have long treated absolute …

Restructuring Sovereign Debt After Nml V. Argentina, Lee C. Buchheit, G. Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The decade and a half of litigation that followed Argentina’s sovereign bond default in 2001 ended with a great disturbance in the Force. A new creditor weapon had been uncloaked: The prospect of a court injunction requiring the sovereign borrower to pay those creditors that decline to participate in a debt restructuring ratably with any payments made to those creditors that do provide the country with debt relief.

For the first time holdouts succeeded in fashioning a weapon that could be used to injure their erstwhile fellow bondholders, not just the sovereign issuer. Is the availability of this new weapon …

The Deregulation Of Private Capital And The Decline Of The Public Company, Elisabeth De Fontenay

Faculty Scholarship

From its inception, the federal securities law regime created and enforced a major divide between public and private capital raising. Firms that chose to “go public” took on substantial disclosure burdens, but in exchange were given the exclusive right to raise capital from the general public. Over time, however, the disclosure quid pro quo has been subverted: Public companies are still asked to disclose, yet capital is flooding into private companies with regulators’ blessing.

This Article provides a critique of the new public-private divide centered on its information effects. While regulators may have hoped for both the private and public …

The Seventeenth Annual A.A. Sommer, Jr. Lecture On Corporate, Securities And Financial Law At The Fordham Corporate Law Center, Matthew Diller, Ben Indek, Ira D. Hammerman

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

No abstract provided.

Dodd-Frank And The Spoofing Prohibition In Commodities Markets, Meric Sar

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The Dodd-Frank Act amended the Commodity Exchange Act and adopted an explicit prohibition regarding activity commonly known as spoofing in commodities markets. This Note argues that the spoofing prohibition is a necessary step towards improved market discipline and price integrity in the relevant commodities markets. It fills an important gap in the CEA in relation to an elusive form of price manipulation activity by providing an explicit statutory authority on which regulators and market operators may rely in policing suspect trading strategies falling under the spoofing umbrella.

Congress’ explicit denouncement of spoofing as an illegal act has ramifications not only …

Regulating A Revolution: From Regulatory Sandboxes To Smart Regulation, Dirk A. Zetzsche, Ross P. Buckley, Janos N. Barberis, Douglas W. Arner

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Prior to the global financial crisis, financial innovation was viewed very positively, resulting in a laissez-faire, deregulatory approach to financial regulation. Since the crisis the regulatory pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Post-crisis regulation, plus rapid technological change, have spurred the development of financial technology (FinTech). FinTech firms and data-driven financial service providers profoundly challenge the current regulatory paradigm. Financial regulators increasingly seek to balance the traditional regulatory objectives of financial stability and consumer protection with promoting growth and innovation. The resulting regulatory innovations include RegTech, regulatory sandboxes, and special charters. This Article analyzes possible new regulatory approaches, ranging …

How To Crowdfund And Not Fall Flat On Your Face: Best Practices For Investment Crowdfunding Offerings And The Data To Prove It, Zachary J. Robins, Timothy M. Joyce

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Quasi-Appraisal: Appraising Breach Of Duty Of Disclosure Claims Following "Cash-Out" Mergers In Delaware, Zachary A. Paiva

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

In recent years, Delaware has served as the hot bed for the dramatic increase in merger appraisal litigation and the proliferation of “appraisal arbitrage” whereby opportunistic shareholders buy into companies following merger announcements and challenge announced deal prices as an investment strategy. While this has not always proved profitable, it has increased scrutiny over the Delaware appraisal regime and the ability for shareholders to avail themselves of the opportunity for a judicial valuation of their shares. Furthermore, it has highlighted information asymmetries in which controlling shareholders, particularly those seeking to cash out their minority shareholders, are incentivized to underpay or …

Activist Investors And Mediation, Juliana Bleiberg

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Activist investors have the capacity to play a commanding role in a company after they invest in it. Sometimes, these investors are dissatisfied with some aspect of the company, from its structuring, to its earnings, or future expansion or investment plans. In very few instances does an activist approach a company and have the opportunity to be heard by the board in a non-confrontational setting. More commonly, the activist will wage a proxy battle to be acknowledged. The goal of this battle usually aims at removing current board members and replacing them with individuals of the investor's choice, who will …

Reviving Reliance, Ann Lipton

Publications

This Article explores the misalignment between the disclosure requirements of the federal securities laws and the private causes of action available to investors to enforce those requirements.

Historically, federally mandated disclosures were designed to allow investors to set an appropriate price for publicly traded securities. Today's disclosures, however, also enable stockholders to participate in corporate governance and act as a check on managerial misbehavior. To enforce these requirements, investors' chief option is a claim under the general antifraud statute, section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. But courts are deeply suspicious of investors' attempts to use the Act …

Family Loyalty: Mutual Fund Voting And Fiduciary Obligation, Ann Lipton

Publications

In recent years, institutional investors have increasingly come to dominate the market for publicly-traded stock. Mutual funds have become especially important, controlling trillions of dollars of corporate equity.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") has made it clear that it is the fiduciary responsibility of fund administrators to vote their shares in a manner that benefits investors in the fund. Sponsoring companies have responded by creating centralized research offices that determine the voting policies across all the funds they administer. Though there may be some variation at the individual fund level, most fund families vote as a block. …

The Securities Black Market: Dark Pool Trading And The Need For A More Expansive Regulation Ats-N, Brian P. Baxter

Vanderbilt Law Review

Procedural law in the United States seeks to achieve three interrelated goals in our system of litigation: efficient processes that achieve "substantive justice" and deter wrongdoing, accurate outcomes, and meaningful access to the courts. For years, however, procedural debate, particularly in the context of due process rights in class actions, has been redirected toward more conceptual questions about the nature of legal claims-are they more appropriately conceptualized as individual property or as collective goods? At stake is the extent to which relevant procedures will protect the right of individual claimants to exercise control over their claims. Those with individualistic conceptions …

Constraining Monitors, Veronica Root

Journal Articles

Monitors oversee remediation efforts at dozens, if not hundreds, of institutions that are guilty of misconduct. The remediation efforts that the monitors of today engage in are, in many instances, quite similar to activities that were once subject to formal court oversight. But as the importance and power of monitors has increased, the court’s oversight of monitors and the agreements that most often result in monitorships has, at best, been severely diminished and, at worst, vanished altogether.

The lack of regulation governing monitors is well documented; yet, the academic literature on monitorships to date has largely taken the state of …

1000 Days Late & $1 Million Short: The Rise And Rise Of Intrastate Equity Crowdfunding, Timothy M. Joyce

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Securities Regulation—Tenth Circuit Allows Lying Executives To Escape Section 10(B) Liability, Leaving Investors Remediless, Robert C. Uhl

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Supervision And Compliance Of Brokerage Firms, Christine Lazaro

Faculty Publications

Supervision is a cornerstone of broker-dealer regulation. It serves a number of important goals: primarily ensuring that the firms follow the governing rules and regulations so that investors can have confidence in the firms with which they do business. Unfortunately, FINRA supervision rules often do not set out specifically how a firm is to supervise its brokers. This article will set forth the general supervision rules governing brokerage firms, as well as the rules that govern specific behavior and conflicts.

Regulatory Updates: Finra And Sec Rule Changes And Guidance Of Interest, Christine Lazaro

Faculty Publications

Over the past year, FINRA has proposed and approved new rules and amendments to its existing rules. FINRA has also issued supplemental guidance on existing rules. This article highlights those rule changes and guidance governing sales practice obligations of brokers, as well as the arbitration process. Additionally, this article will cover certain recently adopted SEC and CFTC rules.