This paper examines the law and economics of third-party financed litigation. I explore the conditions under which a system of third-party financiers and litigators can enhance social welfare, and the conditions under which it is likely to reduce social welfare. Among the applications I consider...

The ad hoc institutional configurations that facilitated the resolution of sovereign insolvency for over thirty years are fragmenting. In the absence of an acceptable alternative, the recent pari passu decision reveals the dangers of common law courts pressured to enforce contracts and paper...

In today's regulatory environment, a corporation engaged in wrongdoing can be sure of one thing: regulators will point to an ineffective compliance program as a key cause of institutional misconduct. The explosion in the importance of compliance is unsurprising given the emphasis that...

The second of a two-part "handbook" — the first has been simultaneously posted on author's SSRN page — this pithy article details the potential defenses available to financial institutions and the issues that all parties should be prepared to address when proposing or rebuffing a claim...

On Nov. 10, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed a lightly amended version of House Resolution 14279 into law. Days later, Rhode Island's Fernand St. Germain made clear its primary purpose: the modernization of the existing bank regulatory system. Tucked within this bill lay the Electronic Funds...

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...

Although federally- and state- chartered corporations function similarly, federal law privileges the former in at least one significant respect: their access to this nation’s federal courts. Pursuant to the language now codified in Section 1332 of the twenty-eighth title of the United States...

Distilled to its most basic sense, § 363(k) has always given secured creditor the right “credit bid,” or to use, up to the full amount of the debt owed to the secured creditor by the debtor, as currency in any sale of the collateral securing the debt owed to that claimant under § 363(b)...