Sokol’s trades
Per the WSJ, Buffett associate David Sokol bought shares of a potential Berkshire target, Lubrizol, the day after expressed interest in the company on behalf of Berkshire. He sold those shares a week later, but soon bought more around the time the Lubrizol board met to discuss Berkshire’s interest. Sokol told Buffett about the deal ... Sokol’s trades
Posner on corporate fiduciary duties
Francis Pileggi brings news of an interesting Posner opinion in CDX Liquidating Trust v. Venrock Associates, (7th Cir. March 29, 2011), a case decided under Delaware law. As Mr. Pileggi notes, the case held, among other things, that disclosure of a conflict of a director’s interest may “insulate the agreement from attack, but does not, per ... Posner on corporate fiduciary duties
Insider trading at the FDA
The SEC has civilly charged an FDA employee under 17(a) and 10(b) with violating his duty of trust and confidence to the FDA and misappropriating drug approval information by using it to make $3.6 million in trading securities. The WSJ story summarizes: The SEC and the Justice Department said the men traded shares dating back ... Insider trading at the FDA
The death of campaign finance regulation
In Arizona Free Enterprise Club, et al., v. Bennett, et al. and McComish, et al., v. Bennett, et al. the Court is deciding what seems to be a couple of relatively narrow issues: (1) Whether the First Amendment forbids states from providing additional government subsidies to publicly financed candidates that are triggered by independent expenditure ... The death of campaign finance regulation
Fretting over privacy
Gordon Crovitz, writing in today’s WSJ, notes that news that more than half of Americans over 12 have Facebook accounts powerfully suggests that people don’t care that much about “trading personal information for other benefits.” He asks, “why is Washington so focused on new privacy laws?” He’s referring, e.g., to the Obama administration’s call for ... Fretting over privacy
Fiscal discipline in Illinois
Last January I commented on the Illinois tax increase of personal income tax rates from 3% to 5% and corporate taxes from 4.8% to 7%: Detroit would seem to be a good example to keep in mind when thinking about Peoria without Caterpillar. Remember that any company considering moving to or staying in Illinois not ... Fiscal discipline in Illinois
Bonuses for prosecutors
Walter Olson has been posting on a Colorado plan to give bonuses to prosecutors based on conviction rates. His latest post on why this is a bad idea says “[v]ery similar logic helps explain the historically prevailing ban on contingency fees for lawyers in most Western legal systems.” Actually, this is worse. First, there’s a ... Bonuses for prosecutors
What happened to IPOs redux
A couple of months ago I asked, “what happened to IPOs.” Today’s WSJ asks almost the exact same question and gets the same answer: The elephant in the room is the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law, which triggered billions of dollars in new compliance costs for public companies. * * * The question for companies now, as ... What happened to IPOs redux
The counterproductive effects of SOX and Dodd-Frank
Much significant regulation has been inflicted on the financial markets over the last decade with little regard for evidence of whether the regulation is likely to accomplish its intended purpose. A couple of recent studies on SOX and Dodd-Frank suggest that at least some of this regulation has made things worse. Kim and Lu, Unintended Consequences ... The counterproductive effects of SOX and Dodd-Frank
The present and future of legal education
At the Glom the Masters are discussing “proposed changes to accreditation standards” and possibly also “the reported decline in law school applications and talk of the law school bubble’s bursting.” This discussion focuses on the present of legal education. You might want to also look at my recent papers discussing possible futures of legal education ... The present and future of legal education
This Wednesday: talking movies at Yale
I’ll be discussing Inside Job with Steve Davidoff and Roberta Romano, at the invitation of the Yale Law & Business Society. I managed to get through the movie last night without throwing any sharp objects at the screen. I’m hoping to repeat that performance on Wednesday. Suggested reading: How movies created the financial crisis, Wall ... This Wednesday: talking movies at Yale
The Dodd-Frank debacle, takeover edition
The so-called “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” was supposed to fix the problems that led to the financial bust. Of course, that would require some understanding of what, exactly, those problems were, which Congress lacked. The Act did little to fix the credit raters or the derivatives market that surely had something ... The Dodd-Frank debacle, takeover edition
