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Showing results for:  “digital markets act”

Another path to growth: fix SOX

Yesterday I noted, anticipating the President’s call tonight for spending to encourage US growth and competitiveness, that “a better way to increase U.S. competitiveness is by changing the law rather than spending money.”  One law to consider is Sarbanes-Oxley.  In our book, The Sarbanes-Oxley Debacle, Butler and I discuss, among other things, SOX’s effect on ... Another path to growth: fix SOX

Intel Case the Model for the FTC?

So says this BusinessWeek headline based on an interview with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz.   However, most of the article appears to be about establishing the Commission seeking to advance the proposition that the FTC Act expands beyond the scope of the antitrust laws.   For example, the Chairman is quoted as saying “We would ... Intel Case the Model for the FTC?

Paths to competitiveness: more spending vs. better laws

As Steve Bainbridge recently noted: Obama said . . . that making the U.S. more competitive means investing in a more educated work force, committing more to research and technology, and improving everything from highways and airports to high-speed Internet. He observes that a better way to increase U.S. competitiveness is by changing the law ... Paths to competitiveness: more spending vs. better laws

The SEC recommends broker-dealer fiduciary duties

The SEC staff,  acting under Dodd-Frank §913(g), has decided to recommend a “uniform fiduciary standard” for broker-dealers and investment advisors who provide investment advice to retail customers. The recommended rules would provide that the standard of conduct for all brokers, dealers, and investment advisers, when providing personalized investment advice about securities to retail customers (and ... The SEC recommends broker-dealer fiduciary duties

More on the First Amendment and proxy access

The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United promise to play out for quite awhile, particularly including its effect on corporate governance. For example, will corporate decision-making that produces corporate speech be exempt from the First Amendment?  And how does the First Amendment apply to securities law limitations on what corporations can say ... More on the First Amendment and proxy access

The Relevance of ELS Revisited

Brian Leiter’s recent post, Empirical Legal Studies, Redux, summarizes the blog debate over the growth of empirical legal studies and its implications for legal scholarship.   There is not much need to go through history here, but Professor Leiter’s recent post gets pretty quickly to the point, i.e. Professor Eisenberg’s response to Leiter’s would be-claim that ... The Relevance of ELS Revisited

FCC Approves Comcast-NBC Merger With Conditions

While the FCC has announced its approval of the Comcast-NBC deal, The problem of overlapping agency review of mergers arises once again.  We’ve discussed previously the costs of FCC merger view, and in particular, the issues of delay and imposition of conditions unrelated to the merger.  The FCC review of the Comcast-NBC deal appears to ... FCC Approves Comcast-NBC Merger With Conditions

Jonathan Macey for SEC Commissioner

In a must-read op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Yale Law’s Jonathan Macey weighs in on Goldman Sachs’s decision to allow only foreign gazillionaires — no Americans, regardless of their wealth or sophistication — to invest in new shares of Facebook.  Numerous observers have portrayed Goldman’s move as a “victory for the SEC.”  The New York Times‘ ... Jonathan Macey for SEC Commissioner

Goldman and the problem with incentive compensation

We have heard a lot about the need to give investment bankers skin in the game to constrain the kinds of counterproductive risk-taking that led to the meltdown. The NYT describes a firm that has been doing that — Goldman Sachs. Unlike other Wall Street firms, Goldman retained a partnership system when it became a ... Goldman and the problem with incentive compensation

Please Stop Calling RPM Price-Fixing, Part 3

The next installment in a seemingly never-ending series (see here for earlier offenders). This time, its the California Attorney General Kamala Harris in a press release announcing a settlement with Bioelements, Inc., a Colorado-based company which sells skin care products in salons and online.  The relevant allegation, from the Complaint (Para. 10) is the following: ... Please Stop Calling RPM Price-Fixing, Part 3

Lawsuit loans

Last week I discussed my new paper with Kobayashi, Law’s Information Revolution, which discusses how law’s traditional business of lawyers conveying legal expertise via advice to individual clients “is being challenged by the sale of legal information to impersonal product and capital markets.” Today’s NYT discusses an aspect of this market — advancing money to ... Lawsuit loans

The FTC and the Internet

I will be discussing the titular topic at a Federalist Society panel (sponsored by the NY City Lawyers Chapter) along with Richard Epstein (NYU Law) and Jonathan Baker (Chief Economist, FCC) Tuesday night at the Cornell Club.  Registration details are available at the link above.  Here is the event description: The Federal Trade Commission is ... The FTC and the Internet