Sky Blog
Despite having become a cliché, the past is not always a foreign country. When Craig Muldrew wrote in his book, Economy of Obligation, “Increasing consumption and investment in the expansion of production meant that household debt loads grew to …
The quality of the legal system matters for firms’ access to bank loans: Strong creditor and property rights and a rigorous judicial enforcement system with short, cheap and simple proceedings create favourable conditions for bank lending.
Bank loans are a …
In my recent paper, “Private and Public Controls in the Over-the-Counter Derivatives Market, 1984-2015”, I study how private and public controls operated jointly in OTC derivatives over the period. A main conclusion is that private incentives especially shaped …
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) followed the core of the Opinion of the Advocate General (AG) (see our Privacy Minute dated October 3, 2015) in Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner (Case No. C-362/14).
Summary
In sum, the ECJ …
Stock market prices and the market for corporate control are both crucial elements of the corporate governance matrix within which public companies operate. Share prices constitute highly visible signals of investor perceptions of corporate performance that provide cues for governance …
Group bankruptcies tend to be large (e.g., Global Crossing, Maxwell, MG Rover, Parmalat) and affect a significant number of stakeholders. Business groups constitute a common way for ultimate owners to exercise control over a large number of companies while containing …
Thank you to the organizers and BIS for the opportunity to address this research conference on “Global Financial Interconnectedness.” The OFR was established to identify, monitor, and assess threats to financial stability, so improving our collective understanding of the interconnectedness …
Last week, a federal district court judge in New York overseeing several multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) proceedings dismissed all claims against Barclays PLC, Barclays Capital Inc., and several major U.S. stock exchanges (the “Exchanges”), including NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange, …
Takeover disputes can be fiercely contested. Given this, there is an important question about the forum for these disputes. Traditionally, takeover disputes were resolved by the courts. However, in recent years, there has been a trend to have these disputes …
The European insurance sector has approximately 6.8 trillion euros of assets under management. It is the largest European institutional investor, a fundamental element of financial stability and provides support for the global economy. Additionally, the European insurance sector is a …
From the 2013 Target Corporation breach to this year’s attacks on Primera Blue Cross and American Airlines Group Inc., the issue of cybersecurity has emerged at the forefront of risks to be confronted by corporations across a spectrum of industries.…
Over the past 15 years expectations for board risk oversight have skyrocketed. In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley Act put the spotlight on board oversight of financial reporting. The 2008 global financial crisis focused regulatory attention on the need to improve board …
State-sponsored cyber hostilities on corporations are not a new occurrence. Recent examples include the August 2014 suspected Russian hack of JP Morgan Chase[1] and the continuous cyber activities against corporate targets conducted by Unit 61398 of the Chinese People’s …
Crises can generate pressure for change – and there are crises aplenty in contemporary governance and corporate accountability. After decades of neoliberal orthodoxy, the US sub-prime crisis, the European banking crises and corporate malfeasance[1] have shaken the ideologies of …
Are securities law and their enforcement effective at mitigating market manipulation activities, especially insider trading activities? The study ‘Exchange Trading Rules, Surveillance and Suspected Insider Trading’, forthcoming in the Journal of Corporate Finance, tries to answer this question with …
A few months ago, the European Commission (the ‘Commission’) officially launched a major new EU policy initiative. It proposed to establish an EU-wide Capital Markets Union (CMU). The CMU is a flagship initiative of the Commission. It has ambitious objectives. …
The term “corporate governance”, while now ubiquitous, was largely unknown in the U.S. until the 1970s and the rest of world until the 1990s. There has been little research done on why corporate governance rose to prominence when it did…
At its core, the Volcker Rule is designed to prevent excessive risk-taking by banks, which was seen by the U.S. Congress and financial regulators as a contributor to the 2008 financial crisis. With its focus on the stability of the …
In a recent paper, I compare the legal treatment of outsider trading under US and EU law. Outsider trading can be defined as the sale or purchase of listed securities on the basis of material nonpublic information by individuals …
To the friends of the CLS Blue Sky Blog: The ABA journal is conducting a poll to identify the top 100 legal blogs. We would be honored by your nomination. In addition to reprinting commentary from practitioners and regulators on …