In September 2000, a Brussels court ruled in favor of a hedge fund that held an unpaid debt claim against the Republic of Peru. The decision was based on a novel interpretation of the common pari passu clause. Policy makers and practitioners suggested that this decision signaled a paradigm shift...

This article links the growing income disparity in America to a possible metric that can be used to better assess the appropriate level of executive compensation. The article reviews the intellectual, commercial, cultural, and judicial forces that have each contributed toward the significant...

Mutual funds have enjoyed phenomenal growth with their numbers exceeding the number of public companies and their assets aggregating in excess of $9 trillion. Increasingly they are the investment instrument of choice by the proverbial widows, widowers and orphans, and a few school teachers are...

The accounting and financial scandals the last few years not only produced the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but have prompted a good deal of debate what forces led to so many dramatic reporting failures. This article is the only work to examine how the competitive structure of the accounting industry...

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 introduced the most sweeping reforms of financial markets since the Great Depression. Nestled among its numerous provisions was the amendment to section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act expressly authorizing the Securities...

Today, some hedge funds attack public companies for the sole purpose of inducing a short-lived panic which they can exploit for profit. This sort of market manipulation harms average investors who entrust financial markets with their retirement savings. While short selling serves a critical...

The metrics of generally accepted accounting principles is undergoing a debate in the wake of the accounting and financial scandals that began with Enron. Central to this debate is whether GAAP has become too rule based and needs to become more focused on principles. Sarbanes-Oxley calls on the...