In this article, I analyze the motivations underlying the actions of "rogue traders" - market professionals who engage in unauthorized purchases or sales of securities, commodities or derivatives, often for a financial institution's proprietary trading account - and the motivations of the...

For over a decade, contracts literature has focused on standardization. Scholars asked how terms become standard, and why they change so rarely. This line of inquiry painted a world where a standard term persists until it is dislodged by another standard term, perhaps after a brief window of...

The large losses suffered by investors in financial derivatives during recent years have prompted a wave of litigation, as well as proposals from Congress and regulatory agencies for increased monitoring of derivatives markets. Many, including some members of Congress and even "industry...

Default on sovereign debt is a form of political risk. Issuers and creditors have responded to this risk both by strengthening the terms in sovereign debt contracts that enable creditors to enforce their debts judicially and by creating terms that enable sovereigns to restructure their debts....

Although the SEC's main charge is to ensure the disclosure of material information, it has not always consistently defined materiality. We show that acquisitions of privately-held targets classified as “insignificant” by the SEC appreciably affect market prices, and therefore are material by...

As most venture capital investors are aware, the economic downturn of the past two years—and the concomitant decrease in private company valuations—has created an opportunity for significant returns on new venture investments seldom seen since the early 1990s. Yet while the investment...

Proceedings based on a talk given by Ted Helvoigt, mainly PowerPoints