Sky Blog
Alongside the more typical summer fare, such as coverage of the best beach reading and the latest action movie blockbuster, this summer the media have been abuzz with seemingly daily reports on the latest so-called “inversion” transactions shifting a U.S.-based …
With the stock market regularly surpassing record highs, housing prices surging 13.6 percent in 2013 alone, and unemployment down to 6.7 percent, it is easy to forget just how dire the economic outlook appeared just five years ago. It is …
With over $186 billion in average daily trading volume, the To-Be-Announced (“TBA”) market serves as a significant funding and hedging vehicle for consumer mortgage origination. Although a large portion of the TBA market is comprised of highly liquid agency MBS, …
Applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Morrison v. National Australian Bank Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869 (2010), to the highest profile and widest-ranging securities fraud case in decades, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court …
The following remarks were delivered by SEC Chair Mary Jo White before the Economic Club of New York. A copy of the speech is also available here.
Today, I want to speak to you about the current state of …
The Supreme Court recently concluded that the ERISA fiduciaries of an employee stock ownership plan (an “ESOP”) are not entitled to a presumption that they acted prudently in connection with the ESOP’s investment in employer stock.[1] While the …
INTRODUCTION
On June 24, 2014, the House of Representatives voted 265 to 144 to pass H.R. 4413, entitled the “Customer Protection and End-User Relief Act” (the “Reauthorization Act”). The Reauthorization Act reauthorizes the operations of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission …
Nearly four years after the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”), on June 25, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) adopted its first in a series of final rules aimed at cross-border …
High frequency trading has more enemies than friends, but the key question is what are the costs of reform. Attorney General Schneiderman’s pending suit against Barclays PLC for allegedly misrepresenting that its dark pool (known as “LX”) was “safe” from …
For nearly 15 years, the United States has had the worldwide corruption enforcement stage to itself, reaping billions of dollars in fines and settlement payments from companies that have acknowledged engaging in bribery in foreign countries. That monopoly, however, may …
The following post comes to us from Brent J. Horton, Associate Professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business. It is based on his recent paper entitled “For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed …
The following post comes to us from Michelle Harner, Professor of Law and Director of the Business Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. It is based on her recent paper entitled “The Value …
SUMMARY
A recent SEC court filing confirmed the existence of enforcement investigations into a potential violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. In a subpoena enforcement action filed against the House Ways and Means Committee and the …
On June 16, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an order against Paradigm Capital Management, Inc. (Paradigm), a registered investment adviser, and its principal for engaging in principal trades without effective client disclosure and consent, and for retaliating …
On June 9, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Executive Benefits Ins. Agency v. Arkison,[1] which partially resolved procedural uncertainty created by the Court’s prior decision in Stern v. Marshall.[2]
In Stern, the Supreme …
I agree with much that was said in earlier postings on the implications of Halliburton II going forward. We simply don’t know how lower courts will structure the price distortion inquiry, and if the mess the courts have made of …
Simple. The lawyers. Cases will take longer to settle, litigation will be prolonged, and the outcome will be more legal fees – with no indication that it will actually improve outcomes.
There’s a certain irony in all of this – …
The recent all out, well-orchestrated effort in Halliburton II to reverse the “fraud on the market” presumption of reliance of Basic v. Levinson, 485 US 224 (1988), has clearly failed, but as we shall see, there is more to …
For all the talk about market efficiency, and the dueling economic theories at the heart of the debate over the efficient capital markets hypothesis, Halliburton II ended up being decided on distinctly lawyerly grounds. Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion for the …