Posts Tagged ‘securities litigation’

Banking and finance roundup

  • “Comparing the 2008 financial crisis to the COVID-19 market upheaval” [Stephen Bainbridge, with chart]
  • Fed has tried getting involved directly in smaller business lending before, and it hasn’t worked out well [George Selgin] “Evaluating Federal Reserve Moves amid Coronavirus Outbreak” [Cato Daily Podcast with George Selgin and Caleb Brown]
  • Liquidity for you, liquidity for me, but Washington crisis response might have overlooked liquidity for mortgage servicers [Diego Zuluaga, Cato]
  • “Coronavirus: An Update on Securities Suits and on Updating Company Disclosures” [Priya Cherian Huskins via Kevin LaCroix] “There are likely many more securities lawsuits to come.” [Jim Sams, Insurance Journal]
  • The flimsy critique of stock buybacks: “Would United be worse off if it had spent $3 billion on dividends instead of buybacks? In each case, United has $3 billion less, and shareholders have $3 billion more that they can invest in something else” [Ted Frank, Washington Examiner]
  • From before the crisis: George Selgin on Warren Mosler and the great American banking myth; Kevin LaCroix on mootness fees in securities class actions; James Pethokoukis on CEO pay; Diego Zuluaga on bank concentration; Jeffrey Miron on bank bailouts (“It is hard to think of [a solution] so long as people believe government can magically make bank lending safe.”)

Banking and finance roundup

  • Supreme Court poised to strike down structure of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as unconstitutional [Ilya Shapiro, National Review]
  • No love lost between Elizabeth Warren’s, Barack Obama’s teams when consumer finance regulation was on the table [Alex Thompson, Politico]
  • Cato Daily Podcasts on two topics with Diego Zuluaga and Caleb Brown: Congress is considering a ban on cashless stores, and Bernie Sanders wants to create a public credit scoring system;
  • And speaking of the Vermont senator: “The Economic Consequences of Sen. Sanders’ Stock Confiscation Plan” [Ryan Bourne, Cato]
  • State Street hearing before Boston federal judge lays bare politics and accounting issues of one large securities class action settlement [Daniel Fisher/Legal Newsline and more, Law360 also via Fisher]
  • SEC rules on “accredited investors” are an attempt “to protect us from ourselves. Yet there are no such rules for betting in Las Vegas.” [David Henderson]

Banking and finance roundup

  • Neat trick: banks can get Community Reinvestment Act credit for lending in “low-income census tracts” even when that means extending $800K mortgages to gentrifiers [Diego Zuluaga, Politico, related policy analysis and Cato podcast]
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a plan to regulate private equity. It’s not good [Steven Bainbridge] When you’ve lost veteran liberal columnist Steven Pearlstein… [Washington Post]
  • Speaking of terms with ugly histories, maybe it’s time for Sens. Warren and Sanders to retire the metaphor of the financial sector as vampires or “vultures” engaged in “sucking” or “bleeding” [Ira Stoll, related]
  • Volume of securities litigation is on sharp upswing, policy remedies needed [Kevin LaCroix/D&O Diary and more, Chubb “Rising Tide” report] Rising in Australia too [Nicola Middlemiss, Insurance Business Australia]
  • Unconstitutionality of CFPB structure hasn’t gone away and neither has the need for the Supreme Court to tackle the issue [Ilya Shapiro on Cato certiorari amicus brief in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB] Appointment process for Puerto Rico financial oversight board under PROMESA law is of doubtful constitutionality [Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC]
  • In an age of professional consultants, why does the law continue to require corporate governance to be delivered by way of individual board members? Firms specializing in board services could offer attractive alternative [Todd Henderson, Charles Elson, Stephen Bainbridge, Federalist Society Forum]

Federal judge: time to end “racket” of “worthless” merger litigation

“U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin of Chicago has thrown down the gauntlet: In a ruling issued [June 24], he said it’s time to end the ‘racket’ of ‘worthless’ M&A [mergers and acquisitions] shareholder litigation.” [Alison Frankel/Reuters]

“The plaintiffs in the underlying lawsuits sued Akorn and its board of directors in connection with the proposed merger, seeking additional disclosure regarding the transaction. After Akorn revised its proxy statement, plaintiffs dismissed their lawsuits in exchange for a mootness fee. Ted Frank, an Akorn shareholder, moved to intervene and object to the fee.” The fee amount in question was $322,500. [Kevin LaCroix/D&O Diary] See also Seventh Circuit review of the Subway footlong settlement (“utterly worthless,” “no better than a racket”), which likewise followed a Ted Frank objection.

Banking and finance roundup

  • “In the banking world, with which I am familiar, the general belief has been that you disobey supervisory guidance at your peril. That sounds like law and regulation, but without the open process and accountability. Over many years it has certainly felt that way.” [Wayne A. Abernathy, Federalist Society commentary]
  • Some House Democrats use hearings to badger banks into cutting off clients in industry areas like guns, pipeline construction [Zachary Warmbrodt, Politico]
  • New U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform papers on reforming securities litigation: “Risk and Reward: The Securities Fraud Class Action Lottery” [Stephen J. Choi, Jessica Erickson, Adam C. Pritchard]; “Containing the Contagion: Proposals to Reform the Broken Securities Class Action System” [Andrew J. Pincus]
  • “A pot banking bill is headed to House markup with bipartisan support” [Jim Saksa, Roll Call]
  • Your periodic reminder that corporate law *is* a form of public interest law [Stephen Bainbridge quoting Hester Peirce]
  • “History Shows Forcing Companies to Put Workers on Boards Is a Bad Idea” [Ryan Bourne, UK Telegraph/Cato, earlier on Elizabeth Warren proposals]

Banking and finance roundup

Our inside tips vs. your inside tips

Concurring in a Second Circuit opinion declining to overturn an insider trading conviction in the case of U.S. v. Walters, Judge Dennis Jacobs points out “egregious” FBI leaks and “notices the irony that Walters and the FBI agent both apparently misused confidential information, but that only one of them is going to jail.” [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism]

Banking and finance roundup

  • Gov. Jerry Brown signs into law California bill imposing minimum quota for women on corporate boards: “it’s very hard to see how this law could be upheld” [Emily Gold Waldman, PrawfsBlawg, earlier, more: Alison Somin, Federalist Society] “The passage of this law resulted in a significant decline in shareholder value for firms headquartered in California.” [Hwang et al. via Bainbridge]
  • Martin Act, part umpteen: “New York Attorney General Overreaches in Climate-Change Complaint Against Exxon” [Merritt B. Fox, Columbia Blue Sky Blog]
  • “Now he tells us! You’d think that maybe Bharara would have publicly acknowledged this ambiguity and haziness [in insider trading law] before bringing a series of cases that destroyed careers and imposed huge costs on the individuals who were accused.” [Ira Stoll]
  • “Because [Florida agriculture commissioner-elect Nikki Fried] took donations from the medical marijuana industry, Wells Fargo and BB&T banks closed her campaign accounts briefly, citing policies against serving businesses related to marijuana, which is still prohibited under federal law.” [Lori Rozsa, Washington Post, Erin Dunne, Washington Examiner (“fix the marijuana banking mess”)]
  • Survey: “Average cost of a settled merger-objection claim has increased 63% to $4.5 million over four years, with little benefit to shareholders” [Chubb] “Time for Another Round of Securities Class Action Litigation Reform?” [Kevin LaCroix, D&O Diary on U.S. Chamber paper, and more on trends in Australia]
  • “Congress Can’t Create an Independent and Unaccountable New Branch of Government” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato cert amicus in State National Bank of Big Spring v. Mnuchin, on constitutionality of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)]

Banking and finance roundup

  • High cross-border remittance costs for globally mobile workers slow ascent from poverty, and know-your-customer and money-laundering regulations have made things worse [Money and Banking]
  • “The Supreme Court should find ALJs to be ‘officers of the United States’ and thus make them subject to presidential appointment and removal.” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato merits amicus filing in Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission]
  • “Settlement of Lawyer-Driven ‘Merger Tax’ Litigation Stumbles in New York” [Greg Herbers, WLF]
  • “Financial Regulation: The Apotheosis of the Administrative State?” 2017 National Lawyers Convention Federalist Society panel with Richard Epstein, Hal Scott, Peter Wallison, and Arthur Wilmarth, moderated by Judge Carlos Bea;
  • With advances in Oregon and even California, deregulation of commercial insurance lines is having a moment [Ray Lehmann, Insurance Journal; Lehmann’s 2017 Insurance Regulation Report Card for R Street Institute] Perennially troubled Massachusetts, on the other hand, continues slide in same survey [Agency Checklists]
  • Tech companies have been experimenting with old and lawful device of dual class stock and SEC shouldn’t be allowed to use raised eyebrow power to stop that [Bainbridge, WLF]