Columbia Law School
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Finance & Economics
PwC Discusses How Financial Institutions Can Bolster Defenses Against Risk
Many financial institutions1 have implemented the three Lines of Defense (LoD) model to help define their risk management frameworks and bolster supervisors’ (e.g., desk heads and senior traders) abilities to monitor risk.2 However, as frameworks for managing financial …
Unicorns, Guardians, and the Concentration of U.S. Equity Markets
Developments in private and public markets are changing the role equity plays in the United States, i.e., what “stock” means as a matter not only of investment and corporate governance, but also of political economy. For several generations, a broad …
Shearman & Sterling Offers a Primer on House Blueprint for Tax Reform
The election of Donald Trump in November has substantially increased the likelihood of major tax reform in the near future. While it is uncertain what shape such reform will take, there has been renewed interest in the so-called “Blueprint” for …
How Creditors Affect Resource Allocation at Firms in Technical Default
A central topic in financial economics is how the allocation of cash flow and control rights among providers of corporate finance should evolve with firm performance. Theoretically, allowing for a transfer of control to creditors when a firm is in …
Do Creditors Actively Influence Corporate Tax Planning?
In our recent paper, we provide strong empirical evidence that banks play an active role in shaping borrowers’ tax planning. Our evidence is drawn from a comprehensive analysis of the impact of debt covenant violations on corporate tax avoidance.
Covenants …
Detecting Risk Through Firms’ Emails
Recent advances in financial technology (FinTech) have dramatically transformed the financial landscape with respect to the way we access, invest, and transfer financial capital. In our recent article, we explore a promising avenue for the use of natural-language processing in …
PwC on Basel Committee’s Views of its Fundamental Review of the Trading Book
On January 26 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) released its first set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB). The BCBS published the FRTB in January 2016 with the intent to …
Jones Day Explores Trump’s Plan for the Future of American Infrastructure
President Donald J. Trump’s “America’s Infrastructure First” plan is one of the Trump Administration’s priorities during his first 100 days in office. Throughout the campaign, President Trump heralded his plan to build and restore highways, tunnels, airports, bridges, and water …
Operating Risk and the Rights of Lenders to Control It
Operating risk is a major concern for firm management and stakeholders. Stark examples of losses due to corporate operations include BP’s $17.2 billion loss in June 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon incident (Wong and Yousuf, 2010) and Freeport-McMoRan’s $13.9 billion …
Sullivan & Cromwell Discusses Banking Organization Capital Plans and Stress Tests
Keeping Bank Examinations Confidential in Litigation
In a bank examination, regulators evaluate a financial institution’s compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The process is generally non-public, and the bank examination privilege helps keep it confidential. But questions have recently arisen about how the privilege is meant …
Jones Day Discusses the OCC’s Latest Fintech Developments
The Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) has been working for over a year to develop a comprehensive framework to improve the OCC’s ability to identify and understand trends and innovations in the financial services industry, as well …
Earnings Expectations and Employee Safety May Not Mix
The pressure to meet earnings expectations has grown intense for U.S. companies, and may be damaging the health and safety of workers. Missing analyst estimates, even by a small amount, can lead to significant negative reactions from investors. For example, …
Wachtell Lipton Discusses Acquisition Financing: the Year Behind and the Year Ahead
If 2008 through 2010 were years of tumult and recession in U.S. financing markets, and 2011 through 2015 years of recovery and growth, marked by ever-lower yields and record-setting financing activity even in the face of new compliance regimes, 2016 …
The Impact of Publicly Disclosing Company Tax Returns
The tax affairs of large corporations have recently come under intense scrutiny. One symptom of this scrutiny has been increasing disclosure requirements, both to the public and to taxing authorities. One form of increased disclosure includes putting more information about …
How Institutional Investor Objectives Affect Firm Valuation and Governance
Over the last 30 years, institutional investors have dramatically increased their stakes in U.S. companies. In the 1980s, they held approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of the average firm in the U.S. By 2010, they held over 65 percent. …
Regulatory Entrepreneurship
In our new article, available here, we examine what we term “regulatory entrepreneurship”: companies pursuing a line of business in which changing the law is a significant part of the business plan. Regulatory entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon, …
How Antitakeover Legislation Affects Accounting
In common law countries such as the U.S., corporate governance aims primarily to protect shareholders from managers’ self-dealing. Post-Enron reforms such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and various Securities and Exchange Commission rules are examples of this shareholder-oriented approach. …
Adventures in Sovereign Debt: Enforcing Russia’s Loan to Ukraine
In December 2015, Ukraine defaulted on a $3 billion loan made two years previously by the Russian government. Governments lend to one another all the time, but this loan was extraordinary, and so were the events that followed in its …