October 2014

One of the most complex issues in Section 10(b) litigation concerns loss causation, i.e., the question whether the fraud ultimately resulted in a loss to the plaintiffs.

The reason loss causation is so complex is because companies rarely simply admit to wrongdoing, out of the blue.  Most of the time, the “truth” behind the fraud – whatever that truth may be – is revealed gradually or indirectly.   The first revelations concerning an accounting fraud, for example, might simply be a drop in earnings, as the company tries to “make up” for past premature revenue recognition without admitting to wrongdoing.  A company might announce a slowdown in product sales without ever admitting that it had previously lied about the product’s features.  A key officer might resign without explanation.  And very often, the first rumblings of a problem come from the announcement of a government investigation – without any further details – that may or may not ultimately culminate in an enforcement action.

In response to any of these announcements, the company might experience a stock price drop, even though the market either is unaware of the possibility of fraud or uncertain as to whether a fraud exists and/or its scope.  In such situations, can the fraud be said to have “caused” a loss?

In a pair of decisions by the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, it appears that whether such early warning signals constitute “loss causation” depends very much on what happened later.

[More under the cut]

Last night (actually this morning around 1 a.m.), I returned to Nashville after a delayed connection on my way back from an excellent conference at Seattle Pacific University. The conference was hosted by SPU’s Center for Integrity in Business.

I was only in Seattle for about 48 hours, but the trip was well worth it. As I have mentioned before, there isn’t a good substitute for meeting people in person. Seattle Pacific University gathered an excellent, diverse group of practitioners and academics from various disciplines to discuss topics at the intersection of faith and social enterprise. I may write more about the conference later, but am pretty wiped out right now after limited sleep, catching up, and teaching today.  

While I seem to always get at least one delayed flight when I travel, I do not mind traveling because I love the quiet time on the plane or the car. (With an 18-month old son at home “quiet” is relatively rare in my life.) Almost always, I can finish at least one full book on the airplane on a trip like this one. This time I read Paul Collier’s The Plundered Planet. I might write…

GSU

Georgia State University has posted a legal studies professor opening in their Robinson College of Business. I graduated from law school at Georgia State University, was a VAP at the law school, and taught a few sections of business law in the business school. It is a wonderful school, right in the heart of Atlanta, with an excellent faculty.

The full business school (legal studies professor) position list is here. The full law school (business law professor) position list is here.

The position posting is below:

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY:

Robinson College of Business, Department of Risk Management & Insurance

TENURE TRACK and/or NON-TENURE TRACK POSITIONS IN LEGAL STUDIES

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY invites applications for one or more tenure track and/or non-tenure track appointments in Legal Studies for openings effective fall 2015 in the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at the Robinson College of Business.  Rank is open but we expect to hire at the level of Assistant Professor (tenure track) and/or Clinical Assistant Professor (non-tenure track).

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates for a non-tenure track position must have significant professional experience as a lawyer, the capability for publishing research in refereed professional or pedagogical journals, evidence of excellence in…

The numbers are in on SEC Dodd-Frank conflict minerals filings. According to a Tulane study, the average company spent over half a million dollars to comply. A review by law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel shows how meaningless (in my view), some of those filings were. Meanwhile, Canada failed to pass another conflict minerals bill and NGOs are pressuring the EU to step up to the plate for more rigorous regulation. I continue to believe that there has to be a better way to resolve a deadly human rights crisis, and that disclosure and due diligence in the supply chain are important but are not the solutions.

Call for Papers

ITEM 6 – Lyon

Microfinance: Coaching, Counting, and Crowding

The Banque Populaire Chair in Microfinance of the Burgundy School of Business (France) organizes the 6th edition of the annual conference “Institutional and Technological Environments of Microfinance” (ITEM) in March 2015 (17, 18, 19) in Lyon, France. This conference was initially programmed in Tunis, Tunisia within the campus of l’École supérieure du commerce de Tunis.

The 6th edition brings together–but is not limited to–three major issues that are shaping the sector of microfinance:  Coaching, Counting, and Crowding.

Coaching in microfinance provides training in business and soft skills (attributes enhancing an individual’s interactions and self-performance) that the poor micro-entrepreneurs rarely have. Increasingly, microfinance academics and practitioners consider building the human capital of micro-entrepreneurs as a critical ingredient of moving out of poverty.

Counting and tracking the microfinance clients and prospects with information technologies not only lessen information asymmetry, but also lower the transaction cost of financial intermediation. Corollary: information technologies can open ways for offering financial services to the poor as a normal way of doing and extending normal business and accelerate their social integration. 

Crowding, based on Web 2.0 technologies, enables direct interactions between millions…

A while ago, I wrote a post decrying multitasking. Travis Bradberry at Forbes has an excellent post discussing some research of multitasking conducted at Stanford University. My favorite takeway: “They found that heavy multitaskers—those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance—were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time.”

Alibaba dominated the September business press coverage with its record-breaking IPO last month, and news of its stock price, trading at a 30% premium, continues to dominate coverage.  I have been using the headline-hogging IPO in my corporations class to discuss raising capital, which I am sure many of you are doing as well.  Here are a few creative uses for the class-friendly headlines:

  • I used coverage of the IPO and its short-lived halo effect on other tech IPO’s as a companion to the E-bay stock spinning case (taught under director fiduciary duties).  

As we move into securities next week,

Please add to the list of uses in the comments section if you have any new ideas or suggestions.

-Anne Tucker

Georgetown University Law Center invites applicants interested in establishing and teaching in a transactional clinic.  This position is tenure track. The successful applicant will begin on July 1, 2015.  Georgetown seeks to add to its spectrum of business related clinics. Currently we offer clinics that teach business formation in the field of social entrepreneurship, community development and strategic planning, and that assist low income residents in the acquisition, renovation, and operation of their buildings as long-term affordable housing.

At Georgetown Law, professors dedicated to clinical teaching are fully integrated into the faculty. Both entry level and lateral hires are urged to apply. The person selected for this position would join our large clinical community, develop the clinic, be assisted by a clinical fellow and teach the clinic each semester.

The successful applicant will have a strong commitment to promoting access to justice and a demonstrated interest in nurturing student development.  Candidates must demonstrate intellectual engagement including scholarly promise (for entry-level candidates) or be a proven scholar (for lateral candidates).  Successful applicants will also have subject-matter expertise and a positive reputation in the field, the communication, organizational and collaborative skills necessary to direct and manage a clinic and a commitment to teaching…

Maryland State Senator and American University Washington College of Law professor Jamie B. Raskin recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post, A shareholder solution to ‘Citizens United’. In the piece, he explains that 

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United essentially invites a shareholder solution. The premise of the decision was that government cannot block corporate political spending because a corporation is simply an association of citizens with free-speech rights, “an association that has taken on the corporate form,” as Kennedy put it. But if that is true, it follows that corporate managers should not spend citizen-shareholders’ money on political campaigns without their consent.

Senator Raskin further notes that the Congress doesn’t appear interested in moving forward with the Disclose Act, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has not pursued requiring campaign spending disclosures.  In response, the senator has a proposal:

Our best hope for change is with the state governments that regulate corporate entities throughout the year and receive regular filings from them. I am introducing legislation in January that will require managers of Maryland-registered corporations who wish to engage in political spending for their shareholders to post all political expenditures on company Web sites within 48 hours and confirm that any political spending fairly reflects the explicit preference of shareholders owning a majority interest in the company.

Further, if no “majority will” of the shareholders can form to spend money for political candidates — because most shares are owned by institutions forbidden to participate in partisan campaigns — then the corporation will be prohibited from using its resources on political campaigns.

Back in early 2010, as a guest blogger here, I wrote a post, Citizens United: States, where I noted my reaction to the case, which was that I wondered how states would react and that the case made the issue “an internal governance issue, which is a state-level issue.” (Please click below to read more.)

As on-campus interviews slow down, a lot of students now are coming to me looking for cover letter advice.  Since co-blogger Haskell Murray more-or-less asked me to write on this topic in response to a comment on his super post on resumes and interviews, I thought I would take the bait.  My principal thoughts on the subject are set forth below the fold.  Some of my observations and elements of my advice are conservative and anally compulsive, I know.  But consider the source:  I worked in Big Law for fifteen years before I started teaching law and served on a number of office hiring committees over that time. 

Thee are many good websites out there on cover letter drafting.  Most of the advice they give is good, but it is somewhat varied.  There are some things common and traditional in law job cover letters that may help students sift through the Internet prattle and settle on specific approaches.  That’s the overlay I hope to offer here.