The SEC’s strike suit
The SEC is heralding the $550 million settlement in its suit against Goldman as “the largest penalty ever assessed against a financial services firm in the history of the SEC,” and “a stark lesson to Wall Street firms that no product is too complex, and no investor too sophisticated, to avoid a heavy price if ... The SEC’s strike suit
This week’s Forbes.com column: financial reform
Light holiday blogging, and this week I’m on the road. But I did have time to blast Dodd-Frank on Forbes.com.
Business and the Supreme Court
David Zaring has noted that courts have formed an unimportant part of the financial crisis interventions by the government, and that the end of the Supreme Court’s most recent term suggests that it gets to matters years, if not decades, after they have become settled law one way or the other. Steve Bainbridge responds: The ... Business and the Supreme Court
The Supremes: Congress messed up SOX but no big deal
The PCAOB members’ tenure unconstitutionally insulated them from executive supervision, but in David Zaring’s succinct summary The remedy is the key, and although the Court didn’t explain the remedy too clearly, it basically excised the removal protections, making members of the PCAOB removable at will by the President * * * and handed petitioners a ... The Supremes: Congress messed up SOX but no big deal
The Olmstead decision and the problem of single member LLCs
The Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. FTC on the surface is a highly convoluted case that outwardly appeals only to the sort of people who think about LLCs in the shower. Since I qualify, I suppose it falls to me to explain what this is all about. Bear me out, because this matters ... The Olmstead decision and the problem of single member LLCs
The pot market
The NYT discusses the market developing in the wake of the federal government’s decision in January to leave pot regulation to state law. Colorado’s working on regulations that other states may use as a model. Boulder now has more marijuana dispensaries than liquor stores and Starbucks combined. Hey, whatever happened to all that stuff about ... The pot market
F Cubed and jurisdictional competition
The Supreme Court, per Scalia, opined yesterday in Morrison v. National Australia Bank that foreign plaintiffs who transacted in foreign shares on a foreign exchange (hence, “f cubed”) could not bring a 10b-5 action. Margaret Sachs has a good analysis on the Glom. I want to emphasize one important and generally overlooked aspect of the ... F Cubed and jurisdictional competition
My Forbes.com column on BP
It’s now up. As previously announced, I’ll be appearing regularly as the “Creative Destroyer.” I hope Schumpeter won’t mind.
The Supreme Court partially decriminalizes agency costs
In the Skilling-Black case, the Court struck down “honest services” wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1346 in the absence of bribery/kickback allegations and remanded for determinations whether the errors in applying the statute justify reversals. But the Court also held that adverse pretrial publicity and community prejudice did not prevent Skilling from obtaining a fair ... The Supreme Court partially decriminalizes agency costs
Carried interest and Swiss cheese
When I last wrote on the carried interest debate I commented on the NYT’s Andrew Sorkin’s support for characterizing private equity managers’ carried interest as ordinary income rather than capital gains. This is supposed to be a simple change that cuts fat cat fund managers down to size and fairly distinguishes what is essentially compensation ... Carried interest and Swiss cheese
Ideoblog archives
For those who want an easy way to get into six years of Ideoblog posts, here’s the old archives (also linked in the top bar and listed on the bottom left hand side).
Clawbacks
Dennis Berman, writing in yesterday’s WSJ, discussed the SEC’s case against Maynard Jenkins, former ceo of CSK, to return $4.1 million in stock option grants because accounting fraud, in which Jenkins was not involved, allegedly inflated the returns the grants were based on. This is the SEC’s first attempt to enforce SOX Section 304 against ... Clawbacks
