Posts tagged as:

Securities and Exchange Commission

New SEC chairman Mary Jo White shows better sense about it than some newspaper editorialists that could be named [Louise Bennetts, Cato]

  • “The Dodd-Frank Say-on-Pay Cases Are on the Brink of Death” [Kevin LaCroix]
  • Kevin Funnell of Bank Lawyers Blog interviewed [Crystal Gimesh via BLB]
  • How taxpayer lending props up business model of banks, fast-food franchisors [Dayton Daily News on SBA via Tad DeHaven]
  • Independent currency = money laundering? “How Bitcoin Dies” [Econ Policy Journal] Or death by trial lawyer? [Coyote, Andrew Sullivan]
  • Nose of the camel: Obama budget plans to limit IRAs to $3 million [Politico]
  • How Swiss bank secrecy protected freedom [Daniel Fisher]
  • Sure, what could go wrong? Obama push for more mortgage lending to borrowers with weaker credit [Gideon Kanner, Coyote] More: Arnold Kling testifies before Congress on housing finance, and feels a resulting “need to scream” [ASKBlog, more]
  • More: Per NYT’s expert, “Shareholders have been demanding” disclosure on corporate political spending. Well, 18% of shareholders anyway [Jim Copland]
  • After bank trespass, Occupy Philadelphia benefits from jury nullification and a cordial judge [Kevin Funnell]
  • Cato commentaries on Cyprus crisis [Steve Hanke and more, Dan Mitchell, Richard Rahn podcast]
  • “NY Court Reinstates Foreclosure, Chides Judge For `Robosigning’ Sanctions” [Daniel Fisher] “Impeding Foreclosure Hurts Homeowners As Well As Lenders” [Funnell]
  • SEC charging Illinois with pension misrepresentation? Call it a stunt [Prof. Bainbridge]
  • “Plaintiff Lawyers Seek Their Cut On Virtually All Big Mergers, Study Shows” [Fisher] As mergers draw suits, D&O underwriting scrutiny escalates [Funnell] “Courts beginning to reject M&A strike suits” [Ted Frank]
  • Will Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rules actually help folks in places like Congo? [Marcia Narine, Regent U. L. Rev. via Bainbridge, earlier here]
  • “Securities Lawyers Gave To Detroit Mayor’s Slush Fund”; city served as plaintiff for Bernstein Litowitz [Fisher]

Yesterday by a 9-0 vote the Supreme Court agreed with a Cato amicus brief that the Securities and Exchange Commission has no power to seek fines or penalties after the statute of limitations has expired on challenged conduct by arguing that it did not discover the conduct until recently. I’ve got a discussion at Cato at Liberty. (& SCOTUSBlog, which also hosts this opinion analysis by Jonathan Macey)

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And Michael Greve is seen biting the steering wheel in response [Liberty and Law]

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November 26 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 26, 2012

  • Car dealers sue Tesla for selling direct to customers [NPR via @petewarden]
  • Had the measure been “fatalities per 100,000 miles driven above urban speeds” this story might have been a good bit less “amazing” [Fair Warning]
  • No GOPers want to take away anyone’s contraception? Maybe Sen.-elect Cruz means no elected GOP officials [my new Secular Right post]
  • Trial lawyers, FDA, New York Times continue hot on trail of caffeinated energy drinks [Jacob Sullum, Abnormal Use, earlier]
  • Lawsuit aims to strike down SEC’s resource extraction disclosure rules [Prof. Bainbridge]
  • Quebec language muscle: “After series of fire-bombings, Second Cup coffee shops added the words ‘les cafes’ to signs” [Canadian Press]
  • The CPSIA effect, cont’d: more makers of kids’ apparel drop out rather than cope with CPSC rules [Nancy Nord] More: Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason.

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October 15 roundup

by Walter Olson on October 15, 2012

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March 20 roundup

by Walter Olson on March 20, 2012

  • “Lawyer Who Spotted Broker Fraud Rewarded With SEC Ordeal” [Business Week via Bader]
  • Reactions to the feds’ antitrust case against e-book publishers and Apple [Yglesias, Wright, Stoll, more]
  • NYT retrospectively backs Nixon efforts to deny tax exemption to lefty groups, or maybe ire at tea party adversaries just makes the paper less than consistent [Caron, background, more]
  • House Judiciary testimony on the evils of consent decrees binding the government to pursue regulation in certain ways [Andrew Grossman]
  • “Law Firm Claims It Had No Control Over $464 Mln Fee Request” [WSJ Law Blog]
  • “California’s ethnic identity police” [Mickey Kaus]
  • Role, economic incentives of special masters in litigation overdue for reformist attention [Ted/PoL]

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DealBreaker and Prof. Bainbridge try to clarify what the proposed ban would do, and address fears that it would criminalize stock trading by persons not employed by Congress who learn of impending legislative developments. Related: Jim Copland.

They’re coming up within the next few days, but Prof. Bainbridge warns that the draft legislation circulating from the office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is “bizarre” and “toothless.” Earlier here, here, etc.

More: Gillibrand’s office says the weakness of the proposal was due to an inadvertent drafting error and that it will be given teeth. C-SPAN covers the hearing, the SEC and Sen. Scott Brown make their views known, Todd Henderson and Larry Ribstein take a contrarian position, and Prof. Bainbridge covers the scholarly testimony.

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Thanks to the sensational revelations from Hoover’s Peter Schweizer on 60 Minutes and elsewhere, the public is now aware of the uncanny investment success that members of the U.S. Congress enjoy when they personally bet on the stocks of companies with business in the capital. But is it lawful for them to be trading on inside information? I take up that question in my new Cato at Liberty post. More: Bainbridge, Stoll, @AndrewBreitbart.

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“Tulane Study Says SEC Estimate of Cost of Conflict Mineral Rules is 100x Too Low” — headline at Business Law Prof (via Prof. Bainbridge), describing a new calculation that the implementation of the complication Dodd-Frank provision will in fact cost American business upwards of $7 billion, not the $70 million the Securities and Exchange Commission optimistically foresaw. (Typo fixed now.) Earlier here, here (“devastating” effect on Congolese).

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It might require — not that! — relaxing securities regulation. [Amy Cortese, New York Times]

David Aronson, New York Times:

The “Loi Obama” or Obama Law — as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act of 2010 has become known in the [central African] region — includes an obscure provision that requires public companies to indicate what measures they are taking to ensure that minerals in their supply chain don’t benefit warlords in conflict-ravaged Congo. The provision came about in no small part because of the work of high-profile advocacy groups like the Enough Project and Global Witness, which have been working for an end to what they call “conflict minerals.”

Unfortunately, the Dodd-Frank law has had unintended and devastating consequences, as I saw firsthand on a trip to eastern Congo this summer. …

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July 26 roundup

by Walter Olson on July 26, 2011

  • Murder victim’s family sues Schwarzenegger for commuting sentence [KTXL]
  • Easter egg in Dodd-Frank: Lawmaker’s pet “conflict minerals” proposal, to be enforced by SEC [Protess] More on costs to automakers and others: WLF, Carter Wood, more. Further: Bader.
  • Push is on again for fashion design copyright protection [NYT, earlier] Another skeptical view of bill [Katy Tasker, Public Knowledge]
  • Charges dropped against woman who videotaped cops from her front yard [Rochester D&C]
  • “Mom Charged with ‘Child Endangerment’ When Tot Wanders Off” [Free-Range Kids]
  • Live off the land? Better not try that in rural L.A. County [Cavanaugh]
  • Does the U.S. maintain diplomatic relations with this strange realm of “Gould, Arkansas”? [Volokh, Underhill/Forbes]

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June 8 roundup

by Walter Olson on June 8, 2011

  • Law firm settles with employee who said required high heels led to back injury [ABA Journal]
  • Stock listings fleeing U.S. for overseas, legal environment a factor [Ribstein, TotM]
  • Partial solution to above? Ted Frank places a stock bet on the Wal-Mart case [PoL, more]
  • Wider press coverage of hospital drug shortage [AP, Reuters, my March post]
  • Trial judge up north supports certifying as class action unusual suit blaming Newfoundland for moose collisions [Canadian Press via Karlsgodt, earlier here and here]
  • Academic revolt against copyright overreach [Chron of Higher Ed]
  • Sues deceased grandmother over trampoline injury [Madison County Record]

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That could be the result of the new institution of elaborate compliance system mandates that could prove to be beyond the capacity of fledgling start-ups, per Marc Hodak:

So, the government decided it had to increase regulations [on] the one part of the financial services sector -– hedge funds –- that had nothing to do with the financial crisis. And because the government felt compelled to spend gobs of taxpayer cash to bail out financial institution[s] that were too big to fail, Congress created a raft of regulations whose main effect will be to crush entrepreneurship and compel waves of consolidation. And the people who pushed for this regulation, who inadvertently insisted that the fixed costs of doing business in America are not yet high enough, will be shocked to find that only the big survive.

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Marc Hodak traces the consequences of legal dysfunction for successful start-ups hoping to unlock value for their contributing talents.