January 2022

It’s Time to Regulate Stablecoins as Deposits and Require Their Issuers to Be FDIC-Insured Banks

By Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr. January 17, 2022 by renholding

In November 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) issued a report analyzing the rapid expansion and growing risks of the stablecoin market.[1]  Stablecoins are digital assets that claim to maintain a “stable” value with reference to …

Cahill Gordon Discusses Proxy Advisers’ Voting Guidelines for 2022

By Helene R. Banks, Geoffrey E. Liebmann, Kimberly C. Petillo-Décossard, Glenn J. Waldrip, Jr. and Sarah Klein-Cloud January 17, 2022 by renholding

Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis) have each issued their respective proxy voting guidelines for 2022, which include a number of noteworthy revisions, summarized below. The ISS updates are available here and will apply …

Essential Businesses and Shareholder Value

By Aneil Kovvali January 14, 2022 by renholding

The COVID-19 crisis vividly demonstrated that Americans rely on certain for-profit corporations to supply the essentials of everyday life. Even in a crisis situation in which the government had assumed an extraordinary role and extraordinary responsibilities, it was deemed necessary …

Financing Sustainable Entrepreneurship

By Paul P. Momtaz and Sasan Mansouri January 13, 2022 by renholding

At least since BlackRock boss Larry Fink’s annual letter to CEOs in 2019, investing in ESG assets has become a major topic among both retail and institutional investors. In a new article, we address the question of how economically attractive …

ISS Discusses $4 Billion in Settlements Expected to Kick-Off 2022

By Jeff Lubitz January 13, 2022 by renholding

As 2021 came to a close, the final tally of new U.S. shareholder class action complaints declined for the second straight year (this followed a record number of new cases from 2017 – 2019). Industry experts point to three factors

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SPACtivism

By Sharon Hannes, Adi Libson and Gideon Parchomovsky January 12, 2022 by renholding

SPACs are on fire. Scholars and commentators have pointed out  the flaws of SPACs, including the various agency problems they generate (Klausner 2021), and their utilization by sophisticated investors to take advantage of unsophisticated investors (Spamann, …

Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Dashed Efforts to Make New York a Hub for Non-U.S. Derivative Litigation

By Robert J. Giuffra Jr., David M.J. Rein, Amanda Flug Davidoff, Justin J. DeCamp and Oliver W. Engebretson January 12, 2022 by renholding

In the last week of December, the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court dismissed two shareholder derivative actions brought against directors and officers of large European companies in decisions with critical implications for non-U.S. companies’ exposure to fiduciary …

Informed Options Trading Before FDA Approves Drugs May Be Growing Problem

By Zekun Wu, Paul Borochin and Joseph H. Golec January 11, 2022 by renholding

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appoints drug experts to drug advisory committees (ACs) that make approval or rejection recommendations for about half of all new drugs (usually the unique ones, such as Covid vaccines). The experts receive nonpublic technical …

Wachtell Lipton Discusses Compensation Season 2022

By Jeannemarie O’Brien, Andrea K. Wahlquist, Adam J. Shapiro, David E. Kahan, Michael J. Schobel and Erica E. Bonnett January 11, 2022 by renholding

U.S. companies continue to demonstrate resilience following another year in which the pandemic imposed itself on world events. Although 2021 did not deliver a full reopening, corporate activity thrived in spite of ongoing uncertainty around “return to work,” building on …

Mandatory Corporate Climate Disclosures: Now, but How?

By John Armour, Luca Enriques and Thom Wetzer January 10, 2022 by renholding

Climate change is one of today’s most salient policy challenges. Under the Paris Agreement, 195 governments agreed to limit temperature increases to well below 2, preferably 1.5, degrees centigrade relative to pre-industrial levels. Since the magnitude of global warming is …

Cleary Gottlieb Discusses Delaware Chancery Decision on SPAC Merger Challenge

By John A. Kupiec, Roger Cooper, Mark McDonald, Pascale Bibi and James Langston January 10, 2022 by renholding

In one of the first opinions addressing fiduciary duty claims in the context of a transaction involving a special purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”), the Delaware Court of Chancery determined that the SPAC shareholders’ right to redeem can be undermined by …

How Does Better Access to Public Firm Disclosures Affect IPO Firm Financing?

By Shawn Shi January 7, 2022 by renholding

Financial markets affect the economy in a fundamental way by facilitating the creation of capital. The market for initial public offerings (IPO) – also known as the “primary market” – is especially important because it allows fast-growing and innovative companies …

How Rating Agencies’ Market Power Affects Credit Rating Standards

By Mingyi Hung, Pepa Kraft, Shiheng Wang and Gwen Yu January 6, 2022 by renholding

Global credit rating agencies (CRAs) like S&P and Moody’s are important gatekeepers for the debt market. The demand for their ratings has increased at an unprecedented rate in the past two decades due to an extraordinary growth in cross-border debt …

Davis Polk Discusses New UK Foreign-Investment Review Regime

By Will Pearce, Nicholas Spearing, Matthew Yeowart, Léonore De Mullewie and Sara Moshfegh January 6, 2022 by renholding

On January 4, the UK’s new National Security and Investment filing regime became fully operational. A wide range of deals will be scrutinized for national security concerns requiring further investigation. The UK government expects to review up to 1,800 cases …

Does SEC Scrutiny Improve Mutual Fund Disclosures?

By Kai Du and Shuyang Wang January 5, 2022 by renholding

Millions of investors rely on the disclosures of U.S. registered mutual funds in making their investment decisions, but some of the most influential industry opinion leaders and legal scholars have criticized the quality of those disclosures. Like public companies, mutual …

Does the First Sale Doctrine Apply to NFTs?

By Desiree Moshayedi January 5, 2022 by renholding

An NFT is a non-fungible token that represents a particular copy of digital work.[1] It is a digital certificate of ownership that is secured on the blockchain, effectively creating a traceable record of every time the NFT changes hands.…

The Management and Oversight of Human Rights Due Diligence

By David Hess January 4, 2022 by renholding

Last year was the 10^th anniversary of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) The UNGPs are a leading  framework for understanding the duties of states to protect those within their jurisdiction from …

ISS Discusses Increase in Fund Flows for 2021

By Christopher Davis January 4, 2022 by renholding

Back to normal doesn’t mean what it used to. Following a year like no other, demand came roaring out the gate in 2021. While the pace of new demand has slowed somewhat in recent months amidst concern of new COVID

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Corporate Disclosure: Facts or Opinions?

By Shimon Kogan and Vitaly Meursault January 3, 2022 by renholding

When it comes to financial disclosure, headline numbers are not all that matters. Equally important are what company executives talk about – and even how they talk about it. A large and growing body of literature in finance and accounting …

Skadden Discusses Waiver of Appraisal Rights Upheld by Split Delaware Supreme Court

By Arthur R. Bookout, Peyton V. Carper and Eric M. Holleran January 3, 2022 by renholding

In Manti Holdings, LLC v. Authentix Acquisition Co., Inc., the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Chancery’s decision to enforce a waiver of appraisal rights included in a stockholders agreement executed by “sophisticated parties” who owned 100% of the …