Sky Blog
The UK voters’ decision to exit the EU came as a surprise to many observers, as well as the markets, with the “Leave” campaign even hinting at defeat as the polls closed. The Wall Street echo chamber view that it …
Moody’s, S&P and Fitch represent an oligopoly in the credit rating business, accounting for 94 percent of the global market (Candelon et al., 2014) and for about 96.5 percent of all the outstanding ratings in U.S.[1] The three agencies …
Covenants are an important feature of loan contracts that enable ongoing monitoring of borrowers by banks and flexible renegotiation of contract terms in the face of changing external and borrower conditions. A large body of empirical research has examined the …
On May 23, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a $1.3 billion civil penalty imposed against Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., Bank of America, N.A., and related defendants (collectively, “Countrywide”) under the Financial Institutions Reform, …
“And we played the Hustle music. There were, you know, printed materials passed out,” with dance steps so “ideally we could all perform the Hustle in precision,” recalled the former Countrywide first vice president. “There was a lot of excitement. …
After the July 4th weekend, Reynolds Holding will be taking over as the fourth editor-at-large of the CLS Blue Sky Blog. It has been a remarkable year and a half, and I am confident our Blog will continue to grow …
EU financial policymakers appear to be once more in a deadlock situation over proposals to limit the sovereign risk exposure of European banks. The strong exposure of some banks in the southern European periphery in their national sovereign’s debt was …
| Rank | Name | School | Citations | Age in 2016 |
| 1 | John Coffee, Jr. | Columbia University | 1470 | 72 |
| 2 | Lucian Bebchuk | Harvard University | 1130 | 61 |
| 3 | Stephen Bainbridge | University of California, Los Angeles | 1010 | 58 |
| 4 | Reinier Kraakman | Harvard University | 820 | 67 |
| 5 |
Since the Volkswagen story first broke in September 2015, most observers have just scratched their heads and muttered to themselves in amazement: “What were they thinking? How could you place ‘defeat devices’ in 11 million cars worldwide and expect that …
In a March 29, 2016 decision,[1] the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Court of Appeals”) held that creditors are preempted from asserting state law constructive fraudulent conveyance claims by virtue of the Bankruptcy Code’s “safe …
Corporate directors inevitably must make real-time decisions on complex and nuanced matters that impact not only the company, but also the company’s various stakeholders—e.g., shareholders, creditors, and employees. The pressure cooker that often is the corporate boardroom is not for …
The work of Columbia Law School Professor Kate Judge appears in the list of twelve best corporate and securities law articles in 2015, based on a poll conducted by the Corporate Practice Commentator. Teachers in corporate and securities law were …
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Whether one ascribes to the agency theory of shareholder primacy or the contractarian theory of director primacy, boards of directors have great discretion in determining whether, when, and how to sell the corporation. Defensive tactics, like poison pills, can be …
To achieve a growing number of public, social, civic goals, we draw on the power of financial markets. Parents who can afford to save for the cost of their children’s college education rely on the market when they put money …
A corporate inversion involves the relocation of a corporation’s legal domicile to a lower-tax nation (host country) while retaining its material operations in its higher-tax country of origin (home country). Corporations have been engaging in inversions for over three decades. …
Hedge fund activism is the latest rave in corporate governance. Activist hedge funds build stakes in target firms in order to press management for various changes. When managers are uncooperative, they may just be forced to step down. Lest you …
On January 7th 2016, Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) published their Exit Poll Report, which stated that in the U.S. 77 venture capital (VC)-backed initial public offerings (IPOs) raised $9.4 billion in 2015. Over …
Columbia Law School is looking for an Editor-at-Large to oversee and administer the Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog. The Blog, now completing its third year, has grown rapidly and become one of the most read sources of current information …
A widely-held view in financial economics is that CEOs holding a non-diversified wealth portfolio tied to the firm are likely to be more risk-averse when making corporate decisions than what diversified shareholders would prefer. To reduce this divergence in attitude …