Sky Blog
In a move that could cost the EU up to 1.3 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union, on Oct. 6 the European Court of Justice invalidated the 15-year old …
In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, the G20 quickly turned its attention to reforming the vast ‘over-the-counter’ (OTC) derivatives markets. The statement issued after the G20’s September 2009 meeting included the declaration that ‘[a]ll standardized OTC derivatives …
On October 26, 2015, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”) issued key proposed changes to its policies, inviting all interested parties to provide comment.[1] ISS will accept comments through November 9, 2015 at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. If adopted, ISS’s …
On October 22, 2015, the OCC, the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, the FDIC, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (collectively, the “Agencies”) adopted (i) a joint final rule1 to establish …
Benefit corporations are a hot new innovation in corporate law. In just a few years over half of the states have adopted benefit corporation statutes, aiming to provide a form of business association adapted to social enterprises which blend profit-making …
The SEC settled charges with two investment advisers to a closed-end fund based on allegations that the advisers failed to adequately disclose a change in investment strategy to the fund’s board and its investors. The SEC also found that shareholder …
Proxy access grants shareholders the right to place their director nominees on corporate proxy materials. The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has been trying to regulate proxy access for almost 70 years since 1942. The most recent SEC regulations …
In order to retain their access to large scale capital at low cost, there is no question that companies need to actively manage their compliance with the ever-increasing regulatory requirements in the United States pertaining to corporate disclosure. Managing this …
The credit crisis of 2008 highlighted the criticality of effective liquidity management and demonstrated the difficulties broker-dealers face without adequate funding sources. In response, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) has been taking steps to impose new requirements that will …
Is a CEO’s statement that “I believe the TVs we manufacture have the highest resolution on the market” potentially actionable as an “untrue statement of material fact” under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder? …
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “Board”) recently issued two exposure drafts that recommend a series of amendments related to determinations of materiality.1 These efforts form part of the Board’s ongoing disclosure framework project, an initiative dedicated to improving …
In their influential 1984 article The Mechanisms of Market Efficiency[1], Ron Gilson and Reinier Kraakman put forward a causal framework for understanding how new information becomes incorporated into the price of publicly-traded equity securities. This framework was grounded …
Yesterday [October 22, 2015], the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14H. SLB14H formally narrows the long-standing approach to interpreting Rule 14a-8(i)(9), which permits a company to exclude a …
Today, we host two pieces debating the potential for firm disclosed insider trading to occur without harm to the company, its investors and other market participants. John P. Anderson, Associate Professor, Mississippi College School of Law, proposes that under some …
Professor John P. Anderson’s article, What’s the Harm in Issuer-Licensed Insider Trading [1] argues that my “Law of Conservation of Securities” has no moral relevance to the question whether to allow such trading.
A stock market insider trade has two …
I have argued that insider trading is morally harmless where the issuer approves the trade in advance and makes certain ex ante and ex post public disclosures.[1] I have also suggested that reforming the law to permit such issuer-licensed …
The subject of “proxy access” represents another turning point in the corporate governance of public companies that many boards of directors will need to face, and for some, much sooner than later. Proxy access, which has come to the forefront …
Any successful fraudster can tell you the golden rule of his trade: if no one notices your fraud, keep doing it. The possibility to repeat past success makes fraud very costly: for example, health care fraud accounts for one to …
Despite having become a cliché, the past is not always a foreign country. When Craig Muldrew wrote in his book, Economy of Obligation, “Increasing consumption and investment in the expansion of production meant that household debt loads grew to …