The Securities and Exchange Commission has recently attempted to establish a new form of insider trading: the use of nonpublic information about mutual fund portfolio holdings to engage in fund arbitrage. In a series of settled cases, the SEC has alleged that fund managers violated rules...

Since September 2003, the U.S. mutual fund industry has been mired in the worst scandal in its 65-year history. The scandal has produced in excess of 40 civil and criminal prosecutions, more than $2 billion in monetary sanctions, numerous Congressional hearings and bills, and a bevy of new...

The corporation's core objective is to further the interests of shareholders. But one judicially crafted exception has long existed. In many jurisdictions around the world, financial distress mandates a shift to a duty to creditors. In May 2007, the Delaware Supreme Court announced a modern law...

Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) influence investor behavior and regulate issuers' access to financial markets and thus, they act as markets' gatekeepers. Further, given the statutory requirements for rating of securities before trading can commence thereon, CRAs occupy an intriguing inter-twined...

Capital market regulators have hitherto insisted on a disclosure based regime, with respect to Initial Public Offerings (IPO), to provide investors with more and more information so that they can evaluate their investment options in a better way. However, more disclosure creates information...

For over a century, bankruptcy has been the primary legal mechanism for resolving consumer financial distress. In the current foreclosure crisis, however, the bankruptcy system has been ineffective because of the special protection it gives most home mortgages. Debtors may modify the terms of...

This article draws upon data from a large empirical study of business bankruptcy cases to cast serious doubt upon two of the fundamental premises required to support claims that bankruptcy law should be replaced by default procedures established by contract. A number of proposals have been made...

This article seeks to contribute to the discussion concerning the adequacy of the legal responses to conflicts of interest in institutional asset management. After defining the legal concept of a conflict of interest in general, the insights of economic theory, especially agency theory, are...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission adopted Regulation NMS, which will modernize the U.S. equity markets through the Trade-Through Rule, rules regarding market data, a rule on access to quotations, and the Sub-Penny Rule. The SEC settled the first enforcement action under Regulation FD...