Securities Law Prof Blog

New in Print

The following law review articles relating to securities regulation are now available in paper format:

Michael T. Cappucci, Prudential Regulation and the Knowledge Problem, 9 Va. L. & Bus. Rev. 1 (2014).

Stephen J. Choi, Jill E. Fisch & A.C. Pritchard, The Influence of Arbitrator Background and Representation on Arbitration Outcomes, 9 Va. L. & Bus. Rev. 43 (2014).

J. Scott Colesanti, Trotting Out the White Horse: How the S.E.C. Can Handle Bitcoin's Threat to American Investors, 65 Syracuse L. Rev. 1 (2014).

John C. Coates, Cost-Benefit Analysis of Financial Regulation: Case Studies and Implications, 124 Yale L.J. 882 (2015).

Daniel J. Grimm, Traversing the Minefield: Joint Ventures and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 9 Va. L. & Bus. Rev. 91 (2014).

Valerie M. Hughes, The Two Hundred Million Dollar Question: Were Letters of Credit as Good as Cash in the MF Global Liquidation?, 93 N.C. L. Rev. 276 (2014).

James J. Park, Bondholders and Securities Class Actions, 99 Minn. L. Rev. 585 (2014).

Hester Peirce & Robert Greene, Opening the Gate to Money Market Fund Reform, 34 Pace L. Rev. 1093 (2014).

Roberta Romano, Regulating in the Dark and a Postscript Assessment of the Iron Law of Financial Regulation, 43 Hofstra L. Rev. 25 (2014).

Jason E. Siegel, Note, Admit It! Corporate Admissions of Wrongdoing in SEC Settlements: Evaluating Collateral Estoppel Effects, 103 Geo. L.J. 433 (2015).

David A. Skeel, Jr., Behaviorism in Finance and Securities Law, 21 Sup. Ct. Econ. Rev. 77 (2014). 

Yesha Yadav,  Insider Trading in Derivatives Markets, 103 Geo. L.J. 381 (2015).

 

 

 

New in Print

The following law review articles relating to securities regulation are now available in paper format:

Derek Fischer, Note, Dodd-Frank's Failure to Address CFTC Oversight of Self-Regulatory Organization Rulemaking, 115 Colum. L. Rev. 69 (2015).

Chad M. Jennings, Note, The American Depositary Revision: Restructuring ADRs for Emerging-Market Investments, 54 Va. J. Int'l L. 733 (2014).

Charles R. Korsmo & Minor Myers, The Structure of Stockholder Litigation: When Do the Merits Matter?, 75 Ohio St. L.J. 829 (2014).

Timothy E. Lynch, Coming Up Short: The United States' Second-Best Strategies for Corralling Purely Speculative Derivatives, 36 Cardozo L. Rev. 545 (2014).

Milan Markovic, Subprime Scriveners, 103 Ky. L.J. 1 (2014-2015).

Thomas W. Merrill & Margaret L. Merrill, Dodd-Frank Orderly Liquidation Authority: Too Big for the Constitution?, 163 U. Pa. L. Rev. 165 (2014). 

Guy Noyes, Student Article, Kicking Start-Ups Out of Online Financial Markets: Why the FTC Should Regulate Websites to Supplement the SEC, 19 Intell. Prop. L. Bull. 29 (2014).

Steven L. Schwarcz, The Governance Structure of Shadow Banking: Rethinking Assumptions About Limited Liability, 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1 (2014).

Stuart E. Smith, Comment, 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, 44 U. Balt. L. Rev. 127 (2014).

Urska Velikonja, Team Production and Securities Laws, 38 Seattle U. L. Rev. 725 (2015).

Assistant Director of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice Emory Law School

Bobby Ahdieh (Emory) forwarded me this announcement about a position in Emory's outstanding Center for Transactional Law and Practice:

Emory Law School seeks an Assistant Director of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice to teach in and share the administrative duties associated with running the largest program in the Law School. Each candidate should have a J.D. or comparable law degree and substantial experience as an attorney practicing or teaching transactional law. Significant contacts in the Atlanta legal community are a plus.

Initially, the Assistant Director will be responsible for leading the charge to further develop the Deal Skills curriculum. (In Deal Skills – one of Emory Law’s signature core transactional skills courses – students are introduced to the business and legal issues common to commercial transactions.) The Assistant Director will co-teach at least one section of Deal Skills each semester, supervise the current Deal Skills adjuncts, and recruit, train, and evaluate the performance of new adjunct professors teaching the other sections of Deal Skills.

As the faculty advisor for Emory Law’s Transactional Law Program Negotiation Team, the Assistant Director will identify appropriate competitions, select team members, recruit coaches, and supervise both the drafting and negotiation components of each competition. The Assistant Director will also serve as the host of the Southeast Regional LawMeets® Competition held at Emory every other year.

Additionally, the Assistant Director will be responsible for the creation of two to three new capstone courses for the transactional law program. (A capstone course is a small, hands-on seminar in a specific transactional law topic such as mergers and acquisitions or commercial real estate transactions.) The Assistant Director will identify specific educational needs, recruit adjunct faculty, assist with curriculum design, and monitor the adjuncts’ performance.

Besides the specific duties described above, the Assistant Director will assist the Executive Director with the administration of the transactional law program and the Transactional Law and Skills Certificate program. This will involve publicizing the program to prospective and current students, monitoring the curriculum to assure that students are able to satisfy the requirements of the Certificate, and counselling students regarding their coursework and careers. The Assistant Director can also expect to participate in strategic planning, marketing, fundraising, alumni outreach, and a wide variety of other leadership tasks.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:

Emory University is an equal opportunity employer, committed to diversifying its faculty and staff. Members of under-represented groups are encouraged to apply. For more information about the transactional law program and the Transactional Law and Skills Certificate Program, please visit our website at:

http://law.emory.edu/academics/academic-programs/center-for-transactional-law-and-practice/index.html

To apply, please mail or e-mail a cover letter and resumé to:

Kevin Moody
Emory University Law School
1301 Clifton Road, N.E.
Atlanta, GA 30322-2770
sue.payne@emory.edu.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 30, 2015

New in Print

The following law review articles relating to securities regulation are now available in paper format:

Adam Adler, Student Article, High Frequency Regulation: A New Model for Market Monitoring, 39 Vt. L. Rev. 161 (2014).

Vladimir Atanasov, Bernard Black & Conrad S. Ciccotello, Unbundling and Measuring Tunneling, 2014 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1697.

Zachary J. Gubler, Reconsidering the Institutional Design of Federal Securities Regulation, 56 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 409 (2014).

Peter J.Henning,  A New Crime for Corporate Misconduct?, 84 Miss. L.J. 43 (2014).

Richard G. Himelrick, A Historical Introduction to Arizona's Securities Laws, 7 Ariz. Summit L. Rev. 679 (2014).

Kate Litvak, Defensive Management: Does the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Discourage Corporate Risk-Taking?, 2014 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1663.

Donna M. Nagy & Richard W. Painter, Plugging Leaks and Lowering Levees in the Federal Government: Practical Solutions for Securities Trading Based on Political Intelligence, 2014 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1521.

Third Annual Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation

Boston University Law School
October 2-3, 2015

This annual workshop brings together scholars focused on corporate and securities litigation to present their works-in-progress. The papers may address any aspect of corporate and securities litigation or enforcement, including but not limited to securities class actions, fiduciary duty litigation, or comparative approaches to business litigation. We welcome scholars working in a variety of methodologies, including empirical analysis, law and economics or other fields, and traditional doctrinal analysis. Participants will generally be expected to have drafts completed by the fall, although work in a more formative stage may also be included. Each author will provide a brief introduction, but most of the time in each session will be devoted to collective discussion of the paper.

Submission Procedure

If you are interested in participating in the conference, which will be held at Boston University Law School on October 2-3, 2015, please send an abstract or draft of the paper you would like to present to corpandseclitigation@gmail.com no later than May 29, 2015. Please include your name, current position, and contact information in the e-mail accompanying the submission. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by June 30, 2015.

Questions

Any questions concerning the workshop should be directed to the organizers: Professor David Webber (dhwebber@bu.edu), Professor Jessica Erickson (jerickso@richmond.edu) and Professor Verity Winship (vwinship@illinois.edu).

Koehler on 2014 FCPA Enforcement And Related Developments

Mike Koehler of the FCPA Professor Blog has posted A Snapshot of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on SSRN with the following abstract:

This article, part of an annual series, provides a snapshot of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and related developments from 2014 and will be of value to anyone who seeks an informed base of knowledge regarding the FCPA and related legal and policy issues.

Specifically, this article uses FCPA enforcement action data and other top FCPA or related developments to highlight noteworthy issues from 2014 such as: numerous enforcement statistics; the wide spectrum of FCPA enforcement actions; the gap between corporate and individual FCPA enforcement; the problematic surge in SEC administrative actions to resolve alleged instances of FCPA scrutiny; and judicial scrutiny of FCPA and related enforcement theories.

Professor Koehler provides links to the rest of his articles in this series here.

Martin on Access to Financial Innovation

Cary Martin has posted Privileged Access to Financial Innovation on SSRN with the following abstract:

Access to private funds is limited to an elite class of investors -- wealthy individuals and large institutions. Individuals of more modest means -- “retail investors” -- face more limited investment choices; generally they can only invest in mutual funds. In spite of this inequitable division, the current regulatory climate will lead to an even further expansion of the private fund industry. This article argues that this loosening regulatory climate could lead to a talent drain amongst registered funds, could narrow the investment choices available to retail investors, and could deepen the already troubling income gap between wealthy and average earners. With respect to a possible talent drain, as it becomes easier for issuers to avoid the arduous registration requirements of the federal securities laws, many investment advisers will simply “go private” by instead offering hedge funds or other private investments. In assessing privileged access to strategies, since private funds are permitted to engage in more flexible trading strategies through the use of derivatives and other exotic instruments, elite investors have better opportunities for wealth maximization and diversification. A large body of empirical research has also found that private fund advisers often have privileged access to valuable information regarding upcoming investments. To the extent that this privileged access continues to grow, the options available to retail investors will continue to decline. From a broader perspective, this could magnify the financial challenges facing retail investors, some of which include dwindling retirement savings and declining property values, as well as deepen the already troubling income gap in this country. Alternative frameworks could entail; (1) loosening the capital restrictions that apply to mutual funds so that retail investors can access a greater degree of financial innovation, or (2) tightening the existing freedoms that apply to private funds, so as to level the playing field between retail and elite investors. However, the long-term and short-term effects to systemic risk, investor protection, and capital formation, would have to be thoroughly investigated before adopting any proposed solution along this spectrum. This would necessarily require enhanced coordination between the SEC and CFTC, and improved collaboration with related industries (e.g., economic, financial, banking, quantitative analysis, etc.).