Sky Blog
On July 31, 2018 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) announced it will begin accepting applications from non-depository FinTech companies for a special purpose national bank charter. [1] This announcement caps a years-long and much anticipated initiative …
In June 2018, the cryptocurrency community waited with baited breath for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decision on whether cryptocurrencies were securities, commodities, or something else.
If the commission treated them as securities, they would be subject to …
The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is one of the stranger financial innovations in recent memory. Imagine if Coca-Cola had funded its initial deployment of vending machines through the sale of tokens its machines might one day require. Now replace soda …
There is a quaint perspective from which the prosecutor’s role is limited to investigating crime and advocating for punishment. Of course, prosecutors serve both these functions, but the description is far too narrow to capture the work of the modern …
The continued explosion in the number of securities class action filings is once again the big headline in our half yearly update. The now-sustained increase in both the number of filings and average and median settlement amounts—including a five-fold increase …
Contracting parties in an on-going relationship often rely on informal norms to resolve disputes and reduce transaction costs. Known as “relational contracting,” this concept is typically studied in the context of procurement contracts between manufacturers and suppliers,[1] but it …
Though the majority of studies in corporate governance focus on the ability of shareholders to advise and monitor firms, debt financing is much more common than equity financing. According to the Thomas Reuters Loan Pricing Corporation, $2 trillion in syndicated …
There has recently been a pick-up in bank merger and acquisition activity that likely reflects both the increased importance of scale in the banking industry, particularly in the technology area, and regulatory and legislative developments that reduce certain obstacles to …
Lending in China is a risky proposition. When a U.S. bank needs to decide whether to approve a loan to a U.S. customer, it simply accesses the customer’s credit report, which is often the deciding factor. The bank can thus …
Despite the central role of government regulation in academic inquiry and policy evaluation, there is no universally accepted way to measure how changes in regulatory complexity and intensity affect private industry at different times. This lack of a standard methodological …
By the late 2000s, independent directors were in the majority on the boards of almost every type of U.S. organization. While this achievement may have improved corporate governance, it was not the panacea that some had anticipated, as subsequent events …
California has made headlines this summer with legislative action toward instituting gender quotas for boards of directors of public companies headquartered in the state. The legislation has passed the state senate; to be enacted, it must be passed by the …
Academic researchers in corporate finance have in recent years taken a renewed interest in the impact of private firms on employment, growth, and other positive developments in national economies. In a recent article, we develop this new field of research …
In our recent paper, we find that the tone of language in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comment letters after enforcement reviews has capital market implications, which are amplified or abbreviated based on the strength of a given country’s enforcement.…
During a speech delivered on July 25, 2018 at the American Conference Institute 9th Global Forum on Anti-Corruption Compliance in High Risk Markets, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Matthew Miner, who oversees the U.S. Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) Fraud Section …
The efforts by boards of directors to increase shareholder value often include buying back company stock. A stock buyback (“Stock Buyback” or “Buyback”) is the purchase by a company of its own stock, either on the open market or directly …
In a recent study, we examine the flow of workers between the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and large U.S. audit firms. The PCAOB, created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, oversees the audits of public companies by, among …
On July 11, 2018, the US Department of the Treasury (Treasury) and the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS) issued final regulations (the Regulations) continuing efforts aimed at curbing cross-border corporate expatriation transactions — commonly referred to as inversions — and …
Traditional explanations for why companies choose certain financial policies focus on firm-specific factors. For instance, all else being equal, firms with higher tax rates are likely to favor debt financing over equity financing, given the tax advantages of debt. However, …