This paper suggests that bank holding companies are in fact “financial malls.” I demonstrates the problems that they pose for the financial system, not only by size but by inefficient and inappropriate concentration. The article suggests restructuring of bank holding companies by introducing...

Broker dealers and investment advisers form the lifeline of the financial markets. While in the past their functions were separate, and their regulation differed, throughout the years their functions were allowed to merge but their regulation remained separate. Advisers are their clients'...

In Boomer v. Muir, a subcontractor on a hydroelectric project continued to provide goods and services even though the value of the performance far exceeded the contract price. The general contractor, who was receiving these goods and services, breached the contract even though he was paying less...

In In re Walt Disney Co. Derivative Litigation the Delaware court exonerated the defendants for their handling of the Ovitz Affair, and yet condemned them. It is a classic example of how a court of law can make law without making law. By an obiter dictum, the Chancellor established the facts of...

Sarbanes-Oxley Act offers an opportunity to reward truthful corporations and their management, offering them a competitive advantage, and relieving them from some the Act's provisions. Corporate culture plays an important role in a corporation's honest behavior. One size does not fit all in...

The term market timing was little known outside the arcane world of mutual funds until state attorneys general from across the country popularized it. The term's innocuous-sounding ring assumed a more pernicious note when the mysterious ways of mutual funds became more transparent. In its...

This Essay reviews three periods of investment company regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. It focuses on the period of 1975 to 2000 in which the Commission granted exemptions on conditions, thus deregulating and reregulating, case by case and finally codifying the exemptions in...

Innovations can consist of new lenses for viewing the state of the world. Securitizing risks is such an innovation. The process of securitization has been traditionally used as a method of converting illiquid financial assets into liquid marketable assets. In the process, functions are...

The Article suggests that many problems posed by securitization stem from the transformation of loans, viewed as contracts, into securities, viewed as personal property. Noting that because both contract and property protective legislation supports the quot;small guysquot; against the quot;big...

A fundamental issue has been raised recently in connection with the status of quot;independent accountants.quot; The issue involves a new breed of few very large accounting firms. These firms are engaged in global commerce and finance, and cater to an important segment of multinational...