Columbia Law School
Sky Blog
Today [September 20], the Commission is considering final rules to update the Names Rule. I am pleased to support this rule adoption because it will help ensure that a fund’s portfolio matches a fund’s name. Such truth in advertising promotes
investment funds
What Does ESG Investing Mean, and Does It Matter Yet?
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing has drawn a lot of attention over the past decade, but the extent to which institutional investors have altered their perspective on ESG, as evidenced by their voting and portfolio decisions, remains unclear. In …
Voting Choice for Fund Investors
The tremendous growth of institutional investors, particularly large passive funds, has drawn attention to their role in corporate governance. Major investment advisers such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are among the largest shareholders in many publicly traded firms and …
Do Political Anti-ESG Sanctions Have Any Economic Substance?
In a recent paper, we examine the economic impacts of a new Texas law to throw light on whether the often-heated political debate over environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues is empty political rhetoric or a reflection of substantive policy …
Do Investors Pay Less Attention to Women Fund Managers?
It is well-documented that relatively few women manage investment funds. In 2019, for example, women accounted for 37.5 percent of all lawyers, 49 percent of judges, 34.5 percent of economists, 19 percent of surgeons, and 26 percent of chief executives, …
Debevoise & Plimpton Discusses European Commission’s Views on Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation
The European Commission (the “Commission”) recently issued long-awaited answers to questions raised by the European Supervisory Authorities earlier this year on the Regulation on Sustainability-related Disclosures in the Financial Sector (“SFDR”). This Update covers answers to questions that relate to …
Discretionary Decision-Making and the S&P 500 Index
Discretion is an integral part of how indices, including stock market indices, are constituted, according to professors Rauterberg and Verstein and Robertson (here and here), and the S&P 500 index is no exception.
The S&P 500 is a …
Reversing the Fortunes of Active Funds
Recent years have witnessed a considerable growth of passive funds at the expense of active funds. This trend picked up in 2019, a year that saw passive funds surpass active funds in total assets under management. The continuous decline of …
SEC Commissioners Jackson and Lee on Proposed Rules for Funds’ Use of Derivatives
Yesterday [November 25] the Commission proposed rules on funds’ use of derivatives to obtain leverage.[1] Appropriate use of derivatives can produce benefits for investors, like better risk-adjusted returns or more efficient exposure to certain asset classes. But that same
SEC Commissioners Peirce and Roisman on Proposed Rules for Funds’ Use of Derivatives
We thank the staff of the Division of Investment Management (the “Division”) for undertaking the challenging task of devising and presenting for Commission vote a proposal to modernize the way we regulate the use of derivatives in investment funds’ portfolios.
The Separation of Investments and Management
This post comes to us from Professor John Morley, who is currently an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He will be joining the Yale Law School faculty as an associate professor this July. …