Columbia Law School
Sky Blog
Thank you, Robby [Greene], for that kind intro. I am delighted to see that Robby, once my research assistant, has clearly gone on to bigger and better things. I also am delighted to be here in Singapore, by some accounts
blockchain
ICO vs. IPO: Empirical Findings, Information Asymmetry, and the Appropriate Regulatory Framework
Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are a new form of fundraising whereby blockchain-related ventures raise public capital in exchange for newly issued digital tokens. The issued tokens may represent a variety of rights, ranging from financial rights – such as dividend …
Blockchain Will Not Solve the Proxy Voting Problem
The U.S. proxy voting process is widely viewed as inefficient, opaque, and frequently inaccurate. The conventional wisdom is that voting inaccuracy has arisen largely as a result of decisions made in the 1960s to transition to a system of share …
Libra: The Regulatory Challenges Facebook Ignored
The announcement on June 18 by Facebook of what it calls “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people” was sure to receive immediate attention. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now on a global …
Can Blockchain Create a Corporate-Governance Revolution at Public Companies?
In a new paper, we analyze the major disconnect between the theory of corporate governance, its legal expression, and the reality of corporate ownership structures, based on an “indirect holding system” (IHS), which has evolved from complex existing technological …
Blockchain Developers and Fiduciary Duty: An Ill-Fitting Framework
By enabling new modes of human interaction, technological advancements catalyze the evolution of regulatory frameworks, tools, and approaches. The rate at which computer technology evolves outpaces that of legislation and rule-making. Our economy is increasingly structured not only by traditional …
The Imperative for Blockchain Accounting
For hundreds of years, the basic flowchart of accounting information has been the same. A firm records its own transactions, maintains a record of those transactions, and reports those transactions (Soll, 2014, xiv). Trends in technology make it inevitable that …
Blockchain Solutions for Agency Problems in Corporate Governance
As a foundational technology, blockchain creates the infrastructure for decentralized networked governance that, over time, creates the environment that enables the removal of internal and external monitoring mechanisms previously necessitated by agency problems in corporate governance. Blockchain technology facilitates a …
What Public Blockchain Protocol Governance Can Learn from Corporate Governance
Despite the hype, blockchain technology remains in an early phase of development. Indeed, for many public blockchain protocols, the process of building consensus around the desired trajectory of the code base remains under-conceptualized and informal. Such uncertainty has led to …
Cleary Gottlieb on France’s New Framework for Approving ICOs
On April 11, 2019, the French parliament adopted a law (the “Loi Pacte”or “Law”)[1] that establishes a new regulatory framework for initial coin offerings (“ICOs”) of blockchain based tokens by entities established or registered in France. At the …
Initial Crypto-asset Offerings, Tokenization, and Corporate Governance
Blockchain and other types of distributed ledger technology pose various new legal and economic questions for companies. Are crypto-asset holders a new kind of corporate stakeholder? If so, are they like shareholders or bondholders, and how can they participate in …
Davis Polk Discusses France’s New Legal Framework for Digital Assets
After becoming one of the first countries to authorize the registration and transfer of unlisted securities using blockchain technology, France has adopted an innovative legal framework governing initial coin offerings (“ICOs”) and digital assets services providers (“DASPs”) with the aim …
Davis Polk Discusses Investing in Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology continues to be a lively topic of conversation in legal, business and technology circles. This includes heated debates about whether and when the technology will deliver on its many promises and how the most common applications employing blockchain—that …
SEC Offers Framework for “Investment Contract” Analysis of Digital Assets
SEC Commissioner Offers Inside View of the Regulation Machine
I had high expectations when I picked up Thom [Lambert’s] book on regulation shortly after it first came out several years ago.[1] Those expectations were exceeded by the clear and compelling way in which the book wrestles with the
Debevoise Discusses Possible EU Approach to ICOs and Crypto-Assets
In the first week of 2019, both the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) and the European Banking Authority (“EBA”) issued reports advising EU legislators on the regulation of “crypto-assets” and initial coin offerings (“ICOs”). The European Supervisory Authorities (“ESAs”), …
Debevoise & Plimpton Discusses Custody of Digital Assets
Interest in cryptocurrencies and other digital assets on blockchains or distributed ledgers[1] has increased exponentially in recent years. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets on blockchains increased from slightly more than $17.5 billion in January …
Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes
Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have recently emerged as a popular method of financing blockchain-related startups. In an ICO, a startup creates and distributes its digital tokens, typically in exchange for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or fiat currencies such as U.S. dollars to …
How the Regulation of Initial Coin Offerings Shifted from Inactivity to Full Enforcement
In recent years, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a disruptive tool in entrepreneurial finance. ICOs involve the sale of a stake in a project with the aim of raising funds at an early stage of development. Although ICOs …
How Bankruptcy Law Affects Digital Assets
In the last few years, an increasing number of digital platforms have launched initial coin offerings (ICOs). ICOs are primarily studied from the perspective of securities laws. In a new paper, however, I examine how bankruptcy law applies to entities …