Sky Blog
Auditor judgment and technical competence are central to audits, and a lack of those qualities has led to many audit deficiencies, according to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the UK’s Financial Reporting Council (FRC), and other regulators around …
The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the British Virgin Islands are famous as “tax havens” that facilitate the evasion or avoidance of domestic tax. They and a growing number of other offshore jurisdictions in the Caribbean and elsewhere are emerging hubs …
Investments in private equity are typically structured as 10 year limited partnerships in which fund managers act as general partners (GPs) and investors act as limited partners (LPs). Since the fund life is broken down into an investment and a …
On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a report detailing a number of recommendations for reforming and modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (“CRA”) framework. The report, which follows through on the commitment made by Treasury in …
On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued long-awaited frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) regarding its new customer due diligence requirements (“CDD Rule”) that become effective on May 11, 2018.1 As a reminder, on May …
On March 19, 2018, President Trump issued an Executive Order “Taking Additional Steps to Address the Situation in Venezuela” (“Executive Order”) that prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in dealings in any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token issued by, …
In response to the 2008 financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) was enacted on July 21, 2010 to overhaul the U.S. financial regulatory system. Dodd-Frank contains 390 rulemaking requirements, of which 274 (70.3 percent) …
The role of institutional investors in modern society often goes underappreciated. In fact, the viability of many socio-economic systems is premised on institutional investors succeeding in their missions. Sovereign wealth funds help stabilize the macro-economy and currency prices, finance critical …
Central bank law is an unloved part of public law. Maybe that’s because commercial litigators cannot sue central banks, advise the people that sell bonds to them, or argue cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to create new …
One of the most disputed policy initiatives of the Obama administration was the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which subjects brokers and other financial professionals managing retirement accounts to a fiduciary duty to avoid conflicts and act in the best …
An important and long-standing question in the economics of information is whether voluntary disclosure leads to full disclosure. A compelling and intuitive argument, often described as the “unraveling” argument (see Milgrom, 1981), suggests that the answer is, yes. In brief, …
We investigate Chinese firms’ use of variable interest entities (VIEs) to evade Chinese regulation on foreign ownership and list in the U.S. We find that the use of VIEs for such ends is widespread, growing, and associated with valuation discounts …
Investigations into potential violations of U.S. and non-U.S. securities laws are often resolved by a settlement requiring the business to make one or more large settlement payments. We have seen settlements paid to the DOJ, the SEC, other U.S. and …
The U.S. high-yield and investment-grade debt markets saw significant increases in 2017 over 2016 in dollar volume and number of issuances.[1] The U.S. equity indices reached new highs throughout the year, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 index ending …
Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School’s Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets is now accepting applications for their Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. This position is intended for a person who expects to begin a law school teaching …
Economic sanctions and anti-money laundering (“AML”) remain at the forefront of U.S. regulatory priorities. Indeed, in 2017, federal and state agencies imposed over $2.5 billion in penalties for sanctions/AML violations. And, despite its generally deregulatory agenda, the Trump administration has …
It has become common in Britain to argue about whether those who forcefully suggested that a vote to leave the EU would have a very negative effect on the UK economy were wide of the mark. This argument may be …
Innovation is perhaps the single most important driver of productivity and growth. However, firms do not innovate in isolation but rather within an ecosystem of their technological peers, as many classic studies show. More recent work finds that a given …
June 2018 will mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller’s classic article, The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance, and the Theory of Investment. Widely hailed as the foundation of modern finance, their …