The meltdown of America’s investment banking industry in 2008 (disappearing into commercial banks via government-induced mergers or morphing into bank holding companies with access to the Federal Reserve’s credit window) precipitated the federal bailout that created such angst in the American populace through the 2010 elections and beyond. Senate hearings in April 2010 painted [...]
This Article develops a construct of judges as gatekeepers in corporate and securities litigation, focusing on the last period—or settlement stage—of the cases. Many accounts of corporate scandals have focused on gatekeepers and the roles they played or, in some cases, abdicated. Corporate gatekeepers, like investment bankers, accountants, and lawyers, function as enablers and monitors. [...]
The enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act both transcends and transforms financial regulation. The immediate setting of the law is by now a familiar one. By 2008, there was an urgent need for a fundamental restructuring of federal financial regulation, primarily based on three overlapping causes. First, an ongoing economic [...]
This Article examines the relationship between individual consumption and consumption-based harms by focusing on the rise in consumption offsetting. Carbon offsets are but the leading edge of a rise in consumer options for offsetting externalities associated with consumption. Moving from examples of quasi offsetting to environmental offsetting and the possibility of poverty offset institutions, I [...]
John Hart Ely famously observed, “We were all brought up on sophisticated talk about the fluidity of the line between substance and procedure,” but for most of Erie’s history, the Supreme Court has answered the question “Does this state law govern in federal court?” with a “yes” or a “no.” Beginning, however, with Gasperini v. [...]
The term “corporate raiders” previously struck fear in the hearts of corporate boards and management teams. It generally refers to investors who target undervalued, cash-flush or mismanaged companies and initiate a hostile takeover of the company. Corporate raiders earned their name in part because of their focus on value extraction, which could entail dismantling a [...]
