Regulating SPACs — Before It’s Too Late

By Georges Ugeux March 31, 2021 by renholding

Although it has been used in the past, the resurgence of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) has been spectacular in the last two years. According to its promoters, a SPAC offers relatively easy access to a listing on a …

Latham & Watkins Discusses New CFTC Climate Risk Unit

By Yvette D. Valdez, Douglas K. Yatter, Jean-Philippe Brisson, Paul A. Davies and Nicola Higgs March 31, 2021 by snehapandya

On March 17, 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the establishment of an interdivisional Climate Risk Unit (CRU) to assess the risks to US financial stability posed by climate change. The CRU aims to be a catalyst for …

Discretionary Decision-Making and the S&P 500 Index

By Bernard S. Sharfman and Vincent Deluard March 30, 2021 by renholding

Discretion is an integral part of how indices, including stock market indices, are constituted, according to professors Rauterberg and Verstein and Robertson (here and here), and the S&P 500 index is no exception.

The S&P 500 is a …

Clifford Chance Discusses the Cost of Commodities and Derivatives Market Enforcement Cases

By David Yeres and Brian Yin March 30, 2021 by renholding

The trend of escalating penalties for derivatives and commodities market abuse violations continued in 2020. Civil monetary penalties exceeding $100 million have become commonplace for serious corporate violations. Moreover, the DOJ routinely conducts criminal investigations in parallel with the CFTC, …

How Blockchain-Based Financial Markets Can Create Systemic Risks That Harm Lower-Income People

By Heather Hughes March 29, 2021 by renholding

Blockchain-based platforms create exciting possibilities for financial inclusion: widespread ownership of deposit accounts and access to payments services. From a macro-level perspective, however, these platforms can aggravate systemic risks. Systemic instability, in turn, threatens financial inclusion and sustainability.

Sustainable finance, …

ESG Investing After the New Labor Department Rule on “Financial Factors”

By Max M. Schanzenbach and Robert H. Sitkoff March 29, 2021 by renholding

In the wake of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new rule on “Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments,” adopted last November and effective as of January 12, 2021, some ERISA fiduciaries and their advisers have expressed concern about the permissibility …

How the Covid-19 Pandemic Affected the Cryptocurrency Market

By Hadar Y. Jabotinsky and Roee Sarel March 26, 2021 by renholding

In our recent paper, we conducted an empirical analysis to test how the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic affected the market for cryptocurrencies (“cryptomarket”). One year into the pandemic, this market seems to have boomed. For instance, when the pandemic …

Paul Weiss Discusses How to Mitigate SPAC Litigation Exposure

By Brad S. Karp, Lewis R. Clayton, Jessica S. Carey, Gregory F. Laufer and Geoffrey R. Chepiga March 26, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

The explosive growth in Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”)[1] is starting to generate significant amounts of litigation. Scores of civil lawsuits have been filed against SPAC sponsors and/or their directors and officers since the start of 2020, with more …

Prosocial Antitrust

By Amelia Miazad March 25, 2021 by renholding

Recent developments have placed antitrust law on a collision course with corporate purpose. In a new paper, I reveal the unforeseen negative impacts of this conflict and provide a roadmap for avoiding them.

Businesses and investors are increasingly embracing …

GameStop, Social Media, and the Phenomenon of Expressive Trading

By John P. Anderson March 24, 2021 by renholding

There is evidence that at least some of the recent social-media-driven “meme” trading in stocks such as GameStop is being driven by motives other than profit seeking. In fact, many of the retail traders involved in the recent short-squeeze frenzy …

Gibson Dunn Discusses Mandatory Corporate Human Rights Due Diligence

By Susy Bullock, Pierre-Emmanuel Fender, Perlette Jura, Oliver Welch and Finn Zeidler March 24, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

In this two-part alert, we examine key global legislative developments and proposals in the bourgeoning field of mandatory corporate human rights due diligence. In Part One (available here), we looked at very recent steps taken by the institutions of …

Regulating Digital Currencies: Towards an Analytical Framework

By Steven L. Schwarcz March 23, 2021 by renholding

In a new article, I examine the development and regulation of digital currencies, which are monetary currencies that are evidenced electronically. Large “wholesale” payments among businesses and financial institutions already occur electronically, and bitcoin has been with us for …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses DOL’s Declining to Enforce Rules on ERISA Plan Investments and Proxy Voting

By Michael Albano, Mary E. Alcock, Alexander Kurtz and Francesca M. Crooks March 23, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

On Wednesday, March 10, after engaging in conversations with stakeholders, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration issued an enforcement policy statement in which it declined to enforce two DOL rules put in place by the Trump administration …

Short Sellers, Short Squeezes, and Securities Fraud

By Christine Hurt and Paul Stancil March 22, 2021 by renholding

Securities fraud and short sellers are strange bedfellows. The stereotypical story involving both happens when short sellers bring to light false statements of issuers, prompting corrective disclosures and giving shareholders a cause of action. At times, issuers accuse these short …

SEC Commissioner Speaks at Asset Management Advisory Committee Meeting

By Hester M. Peirce March 22, 2021 by renholding

Good morning to you all and thank you Ed [Bernard]. It is always a pleasure to welcome the hard working volunteers of AMAC back to the Commission. I also want to thank Sarah ten Siethoff and the staff of the

…

ESG Incidents and Shareholder Value

By Simon Glossner March 19, 2021 by renholding

Corporations increasingly integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into their business practices and signal this by committing to sustainability initiatives, such as the UN Global Compact or the 2019 Business Roundtable Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. This …

Latham & Watkins Discusses Whether NFTs Are Securities

By Stephen P. Wink, Miles P. Jennings, Shaun Musuka and Deric Behar March 19, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

As the current crypto boom has progressed, it seemed Decentralized Finance (DeFi) had cemented its position as the dominant new narrative of this cycle. This view is supported by the tens of billions of dollars that have flowed into DeFi …

The Information Mechanism in Corporate Citizenship: Evidence from COVID-19

By Lisa Yao Liu and Shirley Lu March 18, 2021 by renholding

When governments fail to respond quickly and effectively to a crisis, can companies help address the issue? In a recent article, we explore an important mechanism through which firms can do so as corporate citizens: information transmission within organizations. Specifically, …

Cooley Discusses SEC’s Regulation Fair Disclosure Charges Against AT&T

By Luke Cadigan, Patrick Gibbs, Randall Lee, Colin Scott and Elizabeth Skey March 18, 2021 by Nisha Chandra

The SEC recently brought charges against AT&T and three mid-level executives for selectively providing information to Wall Street analysts in alleged violation of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD). According to the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, …

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The CLS Blue Sky Blog

Columbia Law School's Blog on Corporations and the Capital Markets

March 2021