Sky Blog
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 …
As reflected in the title of the new memoir by Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath, Bernanke clearly believes that he and other Fed policymakers demonstrated exceptional …
In late May, FINRA published a set of Frequently Asked Questions regarding FINRA’s equity research rule,1 which addresses interactions between issuers, research analysts and investment bankers in various stages of the offering process (the “Research FAQs” or the “FAQs”).…
For a generation, the ideological lines within corporate law have been fairly well defined. On the one side, progressives have argued for a weakening of the shareholder primacy norm as a normative matter or that it does not exist as …
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 …
A provision of the Dodd-Frank Act popularly known as the “swaps pushout rule” prohibited FDIC-insured banks from entering into certain types of swaps contracts. Congress recently reversed this provision, so that banks can continue trading in these swaps. The reversal …
How different is private equity from Berkshire Hathaway? The phrase “private equity” has a certain ring to it, suggesting providing shareholder capital to buy and hold businesses. In fact, most private equity firms use substantial debt to acquire companies, charge …
Our insider trading laws remind us of an old Churchill quote: It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.[1] Insider trading laws have never defined what constitute illegal insider trading information. Yet, the statutory penalties for …
Over the last few years, hedge fund activism has received a great deal of coverage in financial media (and in the mainstream press), has triggered heated debates and been the focus of much academic research. Saviour of capitalism for some, …
SEC proposes modest amendments to AP process to enhance efficiency and address concerns regarding fairness.
In an effort to enhance the efficiency of its processes in administrative proceedings (APs) and bolster its argument that APs offer a fair forum for …
“If you only look at the big banks, you will be missing the forest for the trees,” said Hillary Clinton in the debate last night, responding to calls to break up the major banks. Corporate crime is a broader problem …
The question of fiduciary duties for brokers[1] has been a popular topic of late, especially since the Department of Labor suggested imposing fiduciary duties on brokers handling retirement products in February of 2015[2]. More recently, there was an uproar after …
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 …
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a set of liquidity risk management requirements for registered open-end mutual funds and ETFs. The proposal is part of a broader SEC agenda to modernize the Investment Company Act of 1940 (’40 …
Effective September 28, 2015, the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE” or “the Exchange”) amended Section 202.06 of its Listed Company Manual (the “Manual”) to:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that federal District Courts do not have subject-matter jurisdiction to entertain challenges to ongoing SEC administrative enforcement proceedings. A party to a pending administrative proceeding must defend against …
Accredited investors are eligible to participate in unregistered securities offerings such as private equity, venture capital and hedge fund private placements under the SEC’s Regulation D. Based on current SEC Rule 501, an individual investor is qualified as an accredited …
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 …
The enforcement program at the Securities and Exchange Commission has been the subject of severe criticism in recent years, and occasional changes to the system have not begun to root out the deeper, structural defects in the investigation and charging …