This document is a revised version of the written testimony submitted to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in connection to the hearing held on November 13, 2008 on Hedge Funds and the Financial Crisis.Based upon my research on the activities of hedge funds, there are...

Currently en vogue concerns about hedge funds are not nearly as substantial as is often claimed. Moreover, the funds themselves are reducing their risks to investors and the broader markets, in accordance with investor demands. As hedge funds benefit the broader market by mitigating price...

Prior to the subprime-initiated financial crisis, there was a trend within the alternative investment industry towards the convergence of certain private equity and hedge fund strategies and structures. This brief article suggests that although the financial crisis will slow the process of...

The U.S. hedge fund market is one of the largest and most sophisticated hedge fund markets in the world, yet due to U.S. securities regulation it is also one of the least accessible. In the U.S., federal securities law requires individuals to be wealthy to qualify to invest in hedge funds....

Today, individual U.S. retail investors have virtually limitless opportunities to invest their money, with a notable exception: they cannot directly invest in securities of foreign issuers and still be protected under U.S. law. This missing opportunity deprives U.S. investors of the ability to...

This Article shows that financially sophisticated retail investors in the United States likely suffer from undue economic losses because they are not permitted to invest in hedge funds. A hedge fund is a type of private investment pool that compensates managers in part with an annual performance...

This Article develops a unique theory of performance-sensitive debt and argues that certain revenue-stage startups may be missing out on an important source of capital from asset-based loans. Debt contracts are performance sensitive to the extent any of the borrower's obligations adjust in...

Bitcoins are scarce digital commodities that enable parties to transmit messages over a network that serves as a universal public ledger. Bitcoins fall within the definition of “commodity” under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) such that derivatives contracts that reference bitcoins are...

The performance of hedge funds during the financial crisis suggests that wide-ranging financial regulation is not always necessary to advance investor protection and financial stability. While 2008 was a year of record hedge fund losses and investor withdrawals that came about in part because...