Sky Blog
An estimate by John B. Henry in the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel (February 2008, p. 28) suggests that the annual direct litigation cost of Fortune 500 companies was a whopping $210 billion in 2006, i.e., about one-third of their after-tax profits …
On July 10, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the 180-day requirement set forth in Section 4E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” …
The Literature on agency theory is largely focused on relationships in which one party (the principal) engages another party (the agent) to perform some service on the principal’s behalf, the performance of which involves delegating some decision making authority to …
Are securities law and their enforcement effective at mitigating market manipulation activities, especially insider trading activities? The study ‘Exchange Trading Rules, Surveillance and Suspected Insider Trading’, forthcoming in the Journal of Corporate Finance, tries to answer this question with …
The release last week of public summaries of the resolution plans submitted by the 12 largest financial institutions operating in the US reveal more insight into the institutions’ resolution strategies than ever before, including the strategy for each of their …
Federal retirement policy has long been premised on the view that many of us, if left to our own devices, will save too little for retirement. A growing literature in behavioral economics has shown that seemingly small nudges in employer …
On June 23, 2015, the District Court (the “Court”) for the Southern District of New York (the “SDNY”) held that an out-of-court restructuring that involved the elimination of a parent guarantee and a significant asset transfer …
The “car-sharing” services Uber and Lyft continue to generate no end of controversy. A recent strike by French taxi drivers protesting Uber turned violent at times, and French authorities subsequently arrested two of Uber’s local executives for continuing to …
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have zealously pursued potential insider trading. After a long string of high-profile successes, the government faces significant roadblocks created last year by the Second Circuit …
The Federal Open Market Committee, which controls the supply of money in the United States, may be the country’s most important agency. The chair of the committee is often dubbed the second most powerful person in Washington, only deferring to …
More than ten years after the Global Research Settlement and the adoption of NASD Rule 2711, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has approved new FINRA rules addressing conflicts of interest for both equity and debt research analysts …
A few months ago, the European Commission (the ‘Commission’) officially launched a major new EU policy initiative. It proposed to establish an EU-wide Capital Markets Union (CMU). The CMU is a flagship initiative of the Commission. It has ambitious objectives. …
The term “corporate governance”, while now ubiquitous, was largely unknown in the U.S. until the 1970s and the rest of world until the 1990s. There has been little research done on why corporate governance rose to prominence when it did…
On August 4, 2015 the Securities and Exchange Commission issued interpretive guidance elaborating its view that the anti-retaliation provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act apply equally to tipsters who claim retaliation after reporting internally, as …
For more than a decade, the Justice Department morphed its approach to corporate crime, eschewing criminal prosecutions in favor of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements that allowed large corporations to avoid the ignominy of criminal convictions. The trend began during …
Be Careful to Adhere to Best Practices When Approving Advisory Agreements
The Securities and Exchange Commission instituted and settled an administrative proceeding against an investment adviser, its principal, and three independent directors of a registered investment company for process failures …
On August 5, 2015, the SEC voted, 3-2, to adopt final rules to implement the pay ratio disclosure provision of Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”). Consistent with their positions on …
With over 4000 citations in the Westlaw JLR database (most referencing his antitrust scholarship), Hovenkamp is one of the most cited legal scholars. His citations reflect an enormous body of work including the 21-volume Antitrust Law: An Analysis of Antitrust …
FinTech businesses focused on payments systems and foreign exchange have witnessed an explosion of demand in recent years. As these payment systems services continue to gain mainstream acceptance, financial regulators in the US are increasingly interested in monitoring and, as …
Multiforum shareholder litigation has increased sharply in recent years. In our working paper, The Private Ordering Solution to Multiforum Shareholder Litigation, we empirically analyze what has quickly proven to be the most popular and robust response to this trend: …