The chattel mortgage acts first arose in the southern mainland English-American colony of Virginia in 1643. Other colonies followed suit over the next 100 years. The function of the earliest chattel mortgage acts was not to legalize the transaction, but to declare it void if not registered, or...

The Texas Legislature passed Sunset Legislation that distinguished between securities dealers and investment advisors that allowed the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”) to comply with national trends in securities regulation. The court struggled with definitions of “control person” and...

The circuit courts have created a quagmire of litigation for the interstate employee benefit plan. They have created this by merely adopting the LMRA's most analogous state statute of limitations rule as the ERISA rule, without considering either congressional intent for ERISA, or the Supreme...

During the survey period, the Texas courts dealt with several cases concerning the scope of the Texas Securities Act and Texas Stock Fraud Act. For the Texas Securities Act on court determined that whether a certificate of deposit is a security is a fact question for the jury and another court...

With respect to easing registration requirements, the State Securities Board (“Board”) had the opportunity to lead both state and federal securities regulatory bodies through rule changes for finders -- those who assist issuers in finding purchasers. The Board also issued no-action letters...

Many courts rendered opinions during the Survey period affecting the reach of the Texas Securities Act (“TSA”). The Texas Supreme Court acknowledged the TSA's reach over dealers selling from Texas to non-residents of the state, as well as over registration of securities sold. In contrast,...

Texas federal courts have continued to narrow the application of Texas securities laws. The Fifth Circuit applied the federal class action preemption test of Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (“SLUSA”) after consolidation in federal court, but permitted unconsolidated state...

Securities law opinions during this period fall into two categories. The first deals with incompetent lawyers. In Miller, a state court reinstated a cease and desist order against an issuer whose lawyer failed to object to a witness's testimony when a co-defendant's counsel did. In In re Next...