Conventional economic analysis assumes that Central Counterparties (CCPs) may help to reduce systemic risk and avoid future financial crises by mandating the central clearing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives. This view largely goes unchallenged by governments, regulators, practitioners, and...

This paper explores the legal risks involved in depositing cryptocurrency with crypto-custodians such as crypto-exchanges. These risks materialize most acutely in case these crypto-custodians fall insolvent, which has happened over the last decade in several instances. Recent years have...

This Article observes that there is not a clear consensus among courts in how to describe the scope and nature of a breach of the peace when a lender elects self-help repossession and things go awry. That does not mean that courts have not deduced some guideposts that parties can use in deciding...

This paper is the outcome of a related broader project, exploring the explanatory power of the Legal Theory of Finance, which proposes a new institution-based analytical framework for the analysis of phenomena of financial markets. One of its most important theoretical assumptions, the legal...

When things go wrong, it is always good to find someone to blame. As the credit crisis started to unfold in 2007, credit rating agencies (“CRAs”) emerged as the villain – or scapegoat, one might say – for commentators and regulators alike. To sum up, observers accused CRAs of doing a...

This Article critically examines the transformation of the financial services industry during and since the Financial Crisis of 2007–2009. This transformation has been marked by the demise of the major investment banks and the related rise of a set of powerful players known as private equity...

This Article examines the role of contracts of adhesion, in the form of home mortgages, installment sale agreements and other standardized contracts that impose future financial commitments on consumers, in causing the subprime mortgage crisis and the Great Depression. By shifting the focus to...

The U.S. residential housing market collapse illustrates the consequences of ignoring risk while funding mortgage borrowing. Collateral over-valuation was a foundational piece of the crisis. Over the past few decades, secondary markets, securitization, policy and psychology increased the flow of...

Drawing on the 2016 update of the IMF's Central Bank Legislation Database, this paper examines differences in central bank legal frameworks before and after the Global Financial Crisis. Examples from select countries show that many central bank laws have undergone changes in objectives,...

In the wake of the European financial and sovereign debt crisis there is a revived interest in the constitutional position of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the European Union legal order, notably its independence and democratic legitimacy. A new generation of researchers, witnessing and in...