Weaknesses in the enforcement of regulation have been targeted by the G-20 as a priority concern for reform. But enforcement efforts in securities markets have proven difficult and uneven. The recent scandal in the United States, wherein a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernard Madoff went...

This essay demonstrates that, because of the flexible definition of “security,” certain interests have the potential to fall in and out of the definition, and thus in and out of securities regulation. This essay coins this potentiality “shapeshifting.” The phenomenon of shapeshifting...