Sky Blog
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 – as well as government orders to contain it – have prevented countless people, babysitters to basketball players, from fulfilling their contracts. Are all of these parties legally liable for breaching their contracts? Or …
On July 31, the IRS and Treasury proposed regulations (the “Carried Interest Regulations”) on the taxation of carried interest under Section 1061 of the tax code. Section 1061 was added to the tax code as part of the 2017 tax …
Both formal and informal institutions affect economic behavior in important ways, as economist Douglass C. North explained in his 1993 Nobel Prize lecture. Formal institutions include laws and regulations, and informal institutions include culture and norms. In a recent study, …
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the OCC) issued an interpretive letter (the Letter) confirming that national banks and federal savings associations (together, banks) may provide cryptocurrency custody services.[1] This Letter is the latest …
Three catalysts are causing a fundamental reorientation of domestic and international monetary and payment systems: Facebook’s Libra, China’s central bank digital currency (the Digital Currency / Electronic Payment (DCEP) system), and the COVID-19 pandemic. These catalysts stand in stark contrast …
Firms’ increasing reliance on information technologies has reshaped the global economy and disrupted entire industries while also presenting new and rapidly evolving sources of risk. Recent successful cyberattacks have harmed consumers, shareholders, and market professionals, often resulting in the illegal …
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, which was signed into law on March 27, 2020, provided for the establishment and expansion of a range of economic assistance programs designed to help U.S. businesses manage …
In the middle decades of the 20th century, government officials broadened access to the courts, placing public law more at the center of traditionally private disputes. They professionalized and regularized criminal justice, which previously had been a somewhat, if not …
The Small Business Administration (“SBA”), in consultation with the Treasury Department, issued FAQ #43 on May 5, 2020 extending by a week the time within which a borrower has to repay a previously issued SBA loan under the …
These are exceptional times, and policymakers are taking exceptional measures in public health, public finance, monetary policy, and public law. Among the latter, of great relevance to corporate governance are the rules broadening governments’ powers to authorize large share block …
The Covid-19 outbreak demonstrates how vulnerable our elaborate cross-border supply chains are to disruption. It isn’t the first time in recent memory that contemporary supply chains have been upended – the 2011 earthquake off the coast of eastern Japan is …
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”), which was signed into law on March 27, 2020, provides $2 trillion in emergency relief to individuals, small businesses, large corporations, and financial institutions. This includes up to $349 …
The spread of the novel coronavirus has upended Americans’ lives in a matter of months. While life outside has ground to a standstill in many regions of the country, much of corporate America is meeting the unique challenges posed by …
Technological advancements of recent years have given birth to a strange and interesting creature: cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, and Facebook’s upcoming Libra. Many of the advantages offered by these tokens stem from their underlying technology – a decentralized ledger, which …
As the respiratory illness known as coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”) spreads across the globe, so too are its major impacts on businesses, financial markets, and international trade and commerce. Business are confronting a range of losses related to the World …
On January 30, 2020, in response to the increasing global spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the World Health Organization declared a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” Within a day, the United States and Italy followed suit. Since then, …
On February 13, 2020, final regulations went into effect to expand the scope of inbound foreign investment subject to review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS” or the “Committee”).
CFIUS is an inter-agency federal government …
In recent years there has been a surge in research that explores the sources of variation in corporate tax avoidance. Following this stream of research, tax scholars have begun to acknowledge the potential effect of ownership patterns on firms’ tax …
In recent years, there have been significant changes in the information environment facing firms. In particular, the explosive growth in computing power and the reduction in the costs of disseminating economically relevant information due to the widespread use of the …
