Sky Blog
With shareholder proposals regarding ESG and sustainability matters becoming the most common kind of proposal, proxy advisory firm ISS marketing a new “Environmental & Social QualityScore” product for rating public companies, asset managers developing ESG-related guidelines and voting policies, and …
I am going to touch on two areas of work that reflect our efforts to be a responsive regulator that seeks engagement from all as we develop regulatory policies: the standards of conduct for investment professionals and liquidity risk management.…
In 2010, Roger Carr, then-chairman of British confectionery Cadbury, waged a grueling five-month battle before losing control of the company to Kraft Foods. “At the end of the day,” he said, “there were simply not enough shareholders prepared to take …
On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a report detailing a number of recommendations for reforming and modernizing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (“CRA”) framework. The report, which follows through on the commitment made by Treasury in …
A number of recent studies have focused on how the behavior of chief executives affects their firms’ financial decisions. We contribute to this literature by looking at the connections between CEOs’ personal finances and those of their firms. Unique data …
One of the most disputed policy initiatives of the Obama administration was the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule, which subjects brokers and other financial professionals managing retirement accounts to a fiduciary duty to avoid conflicts and act in the best …
In February, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened in United States ex rel. Medrano Diabetic Care RX, LLC, No. 15 Civ. 62617 (S.D. Fla.), a False Claims Act case involving alleged healthcare fraud. The complaint in intervention asserted claims …
On October 1, 2017, new international investment arbitration trial rules (Chinese version) (the “Rules”) issued by the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (“CIETAC”) became effective. The Rules mark China’s first attempt to establish a domestic arbitral institution for …
On September 19, 2017, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS or the “Committee”) released its annual report (“Report”) to Congress. One day later, CFIUS also released more limited data on foreign investment activity in 2016 (the …
A host of studies have examined the link between accounting and the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, most of them focusing on whether fair value accounting or accounting discretion at financial institutions helped skew valuations on bank balance sheets. In our …
A wide body of literature emphasizes that venture capitalists focus on young private companies, generally in high-tech industries. However, contrary to this notion, we find that 29% of the firms that were backed by VCs prior to the IPO received …
U.S. capital market has long been an attractive destination to foreign companies. Cross-listing by foreign firms on U.S. exchanges has been associated with major benefits such as increase in value, easier access to external finance, and lower cost of capital. …
Private equity is often seen as an agent of creative destruction, helping resources to be reallocated to more productive uses. Private equity firms help improve the financial performance and operational efficiency of the companies they acquire, and plenty of academic …
Intermediation is a fundamental fact of finance. Investment banks underwrite stock offerings for companies. Commercial banks safeguard the savings of workers. Fund managers invest the pensions of retirees. Exchanges match orders of buyers and sellers. Brokers facilitate trades of investors. …
One of the primary purposes of financial statements is to facilitate the exchange of capital between investors and companies. The extent to which investors rely on the information reported in financial statements depends on the credibility of those financial statements …
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 …
A major criticism of activist hedge funds, and one that allegedly supports the argument that they suffer from short-termism, is that their recommendations almost always focus on disinvestment. For example, they will typically recommend raising the dividend, cutting costs, spinning …