In his article, The Corporate/Securities Attorney as a Moving Target - Client Fraud Dilemmas, Marc Steinberg does an outstanding job of identifying the complex and significant ethical issues currently confronting securities lawyers. In this article, I attempt to explore the important legal and...

In this essay we make two major claims. The first is that public legislatures should think seriously about giving maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract in company law. This would not only give corporate lawyers the tool they need to provide legal services that match the needs of...

“Control frauds” are seemingly legitimate entities controlled by persons that use them as a fraud “weapon.” A single control fraud can cause greater losses than all other forms of property crime combined. This article addresses the role of control fraud in financial crises. Financial...

The credit crisis that started in the American mortgage subprime market in 2007 is having profound social and economic consequences. In this context, lawmakers, regulators, and commentators have questioned the role of rating agencies in the market turmoil. In light of the critiques, a strong...

This white paper was commissioned by the Council of Institutional Investors for the purpose of educating its members, policymakers, and the general public about important credit rating agency regulation proposals and their potential impact on investors. It offers an institutional investor...

In an earlier companion essay, Regulating in the Dark, I contended that there is a systemic pattern in major U.S. financial regulation: (i) enactment is invariably crisis driven, adopted at a time when there is a paucity of information regarding what has transpired, (ii) resulting in...

This paper focuses on the impact of financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and of their regulation on the post-crisis transformation of securities and derivatives markets. It examines, in particular, the role that trading and post-trading FMIs, and their new regulatory regime, are playing in...

In this paper, I suggest that the regulation of the financial system, especially if the aim is to prevent financial crises, should be focused on dealing with the consequences of the crises, not on trying to avoid their causes, although it may seem counterintuitive at first sight. Contrary to the...