Sky Blog
On July 30, 2024, on a party line 3-2 vote of its Board of Directors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) approved a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking[1] (the “Proposal” or the “Proposed Rule”) to substantially broaden the scope …
On July 25, 2024, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (together, the “Agencies”) issued a request for information (the “RFI”)[1] regarding arrangements …
Carried interest is a special, or disproportionate-to-ownership, allocation of profits to the managers of a private equity (PE) or hedge fund partnership. While fund managers typically own about 2 percent of a fund, carried interest may allocate about 20 percent …
In a January 2022 law review article, I argued that (1) the actively managed ETF was set to emerge as a significant feature of the investment landscape and (2) this emergence would have important implications for the main parties that …
Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are shell companies formed with the sole purpose of raising capital through initial public offerings (IPOs) and using the proceeds to acquire private operating companies. While traditionally regarded as vehicles for backdoor listings of weaker …
As part of its ongoing efforts to reduce what it views as corporate recidivism, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule on June 3, 2024 that will require certain nonbank financial companies to register with the CFPB …
Investors and regulators are monitoring the impact of two cryptocurrency spot exchange traded funds (ETFs) approved by the SEC in 2024.[1] The Bitcoin spot ETFs, which began trading in January, have garnered substantial interest from both retail and institutional …
On June 19, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado preliminarily enjoined the enforcement of a Colorado law that would have applied Colorado interest-rates caps to loans made by state-chartered banks—including banks located outside of Colorado—to Colorado …
Money is a complex construct consisting of public and private elements. It is not all coined or printed by a government; a significant portion originates with private-sector entities like banks, against which other private parties have contractual claims. In a …
The Supreme Court recently upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure in a 7–2 decision that will likely pave the way for renewed regulatory activity by the agency in the near future.
Enacted as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, …
In a new paper, I discuss whether mandatory central clearing of single-name credit default swaps (CDS) should be adopted in the United States and Europe — an issue with important consequences for financial stability in both regions.
CDS are financial …
The growth and concentration of the investment management industry has captivated the scholarly community. Recent scholarship has focused on the “Big Three” investment managers — Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street Global Advisors — and charted their rapid accumulation of assets …
In recent years, China has undertaken massive infrastructure development at home and abroad. Under its widely heralded, globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s financial institutions have financed infrastructure projects in numerous countries around the world. Separately, through its so-called …
Corporate fraud poses a significant agency cost for stock ownership. Activist short sellers, who conduct and publicize investigative research, play a crucial role in exposing such fraud, in contrast with most short sellers who quietly await price catalysts without public …
Since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, the corporate finance markets have been dramatically transformed. Most notable has been the rise of non-traditional providers of debt finance such as private credit funds, which now aggressively compete with traditional finance providers …
In a recent paper, I draw a rough map of the vast field of decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi serves as an umbrella term for financial platform transactions that operate through automated protocols on blockchain and have prompted hard discussions …
On April 23, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL” or “Department”) released its final fiduciary rule, marking the completion of its third attempt since 2010 to update the definition of what it means to be an investment advice fiduciary …
One of the keys of successful private equity investing is properly aligning the economic incentives and interests of the sponsor and its portfolio companies’ management teams as they evolve over time. Unlike a public company, where management may receive higher …
In derivatives markets, as in other financial markets, customers rely on intermediaries for access to products. When transacting, a customer faces a choice of whether to return to a prior provider or seek a new one. My post yesterday documented …
Derivatives are financial instruments used to shift risks, such as fluctuations in interest rates or foreign exchange rates or changes in the value of assets such as stocks, bonds, metals, or agricultural or energy products. At first glance, entering into …