Over the course of its multi-decade existence, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ("RESPA") has been amended to cover many diverse yet related “real estate” subjects. In its present iteration, two provisions — sections 2605(g) and 2609 — deal with mortgage escrow accounts, with...

The rapid rise of cryptocurrencies over the last twenty years has interjected havoc into the staid field of commercial law, one long regulated by the Uniform Commercial Code (“U.C.C.” or “UCC”). Naturally, many individuals and organizations started to count their stash of...

This article reports the results of empirical research on the monitoring role of directors' and officers' liability insurance (Damp;O insurance) companies in American corporate governance. Economic theory provides three reasons to expect Damp;O insurers to serve as corporate governance monitors:...

The doctrine of successor liability transfers tort liability arising from the seller's past conduct from the seller to the buyer. If the buyer has as much information about the liability as the seller, all beneficial acquisitions take place and the seller takes the efficient level of precaution....

A liquidity-constrained entrepreneur needs to raise capital to finance a business activity that may cause injuries to third parties - the tort victims. Taking the level of borrowing as fixed, the entrepreneur finances the activity with senior (secured) debt in order to shield assets from the...

A recent high-profile bankruptcy filing by Asarco has generated numerous demands among legal commentators, policy-makers, and the media for reform of bankruptcy law, environmental law, corporate law, or perhaps all three. The concern is that the current structures of these three areas of the law...

This article is the Belgian report concerning rating agencies to the 2006 Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law to be held in Utrecht. After describing credit rating practices in Belgium, the report considers the extent to which Belgian regulation requires, or relies upon,...

Many legal rules can be interpreted as creating options. Option pricing is thus important for understanding the ex ante effects of these rules. And, recognizing that individuals, whose behavior the law aims to influence, are imperfectly rational, a behavioral option pricing model is a...

Class action law enforcement is a resource-intensive undertaking, requiring investment of both intellectual capital and financial wherewithal. Building on insights developed in the economic theory of investment under uncertainty, the key theoretical proposition is that class action law...

This Article examines how liability insurers transmit and transform the content of corporate and securities law. Damp;O liability insurers are the financiers of shareholder litigation in the American legal system, paying on behalf of the corporation and its directors and officers when...