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Lately, I’ve been researching the twelve nation Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty (“TPP”) because I am looking at investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) in my work in progress proposing a model bilateral investment treaty between the U.S. and Cuba.

The TPP, which both Trump and Clinton oppose, has the support of U.S. business. Although President Obama has pushed the treaty as part of his legacy, just this morning, Vice-President Biden added his pessimistic views about its passage. More interestingly, over 220 law and economics academics, led by Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, have come out publicly to oppose TPP, stating:

ISDS grants foreign corporations and investors a special legal privilege: the right to initiate dispute settlement proceedings against a government for actions that allegedly violate loosely defined investor rights to seek damages from taxpayers for the corporation’s lost profits. Essentially, corporations and investors use ISDS to challenge government policies, actions, or decisions that they allege reduce the value of their investments… Through ISDS, the federal government gives foreign investors – and foreign investors alone – the ability to bypass th[e] robust, nuanced, and democratically responsive legal framework. Foreign investors are able to frame questions of domestic constitutional and administrative law as treaty claims…

Earlier this week the House Financial Services Committee voted to repeal the Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Rule, which I last wrote about here and in a law review article criticizing this kind of disclosure regime in general.

Under the proposed Financial Choice Act (with the catchy tagline of “Growth for All, Bailouts for None”), a number of Dodd-Frank provisions would go by the wayside, including conflict minerals because:

Title XV of the Dodd-Frank Act imposes a number of overly burdensome disclosure requirements related to conflict minerals, extractive industries, and mine safety that bear no rational relationship to the SEC’s statutory mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and promote capital formation. The Financial CHOICE Act repeals those requirements. There is overwhelming evidence that Dodd-Frank’s conflict minerals disclosure requirement has done far more harm than good to its intended beneficiaries – the citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Central African countries. SEC Chair Mary Jo White, an Obama appointee, has conceded the Commission is not the appropriate agency to carry out humanitarian policy. The provisions of Title XV of the Dodd-Frank Act are a prime example of the increasing use of the federal securities laws as…

I think, by now, most people have heard about Colin Kaepernick’s protest, which he manifested by his refusal to stand for the national anthem before the 49ers’ August 26 preseason game against the Green Bay Packers.  Kaepernick explained his actions as follows: 

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

Many were offended by his decision; others have applauded it.  What is it that makes people (particularly white people) so upset about someone choosing not to stand for the national anthem? I thought the anthem and flag were supposed to stand for freedom, which includes the freedom to dissent and disagree. It fascinates me that one football player could get this much press for deciding not to do something he was under no obligation to do (as his employer made clear). But it certainly explains why he did it. If nothing else, Colin Kaepernick reminded of us both of our ability…

Last year, on the suggestion of an ALSB colleague, I did a post on promotion, tenure, and administrative appointment news for legal studies professors in business schools. I continue that series this year, below. I am happy to add to this list, as I am sure it is incomplete. Congrats to all!

Robert Bird (UConn) – promoted to full professor

De Vee Dykstra (South Dakota) – appointed associate dean of Beacom School of Business

Marc Edelman (CUNY) – promoted to full professor and awarded tenure

Josh Perry (Indiana-Kelley School of Business) – appointed to Dean of Undergraduate Affairs

Jamie Prenkert (Indiana-Kelley (Bloomington Campus)) – appointed Associate Vice Provost

Scott Shackelford (Indiana-Kelley) – promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure

Stock pricing in the securities market responds to supply and demand.  This is intuitive with regard to individual securities.  We understand that if more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. Conversely, the price decreases if more want to sell than buy.  I wonder to what extent regulators have examined the role of retirement saving plans in flooding the market with demand to buy new securities and which can drive up stock prices overall.  Consider this historical graph of the NYSE trading average.  Observe the sharp rise beginning in the late 1980’s with the introduction of individual retirement savings plan and the beginning of the defined contribution society. 

Nyse-composite-may

chart source: Forecast Chart

New Department of Labor regulations open the door for state governments to sponsor retirement savings plans for non-government workers.  See for example, California’s proposed plans.  The rules, proposed in 2015, became final on August 30, 2016.  You can read a summary of the proposed plans published by The Brookings Institute and a DOL interpretive bulletin.  Also being considered are proposed rules authorizing high-population cities to sponsor similar plans in states that don’t create the non-government worker retirement savings plans.  Collectively, these regulations…

In his article, Making It Easier for Directors to “Do the Right Thing?” 4 Harv. Bus. L. Rev. 235, 237–39 (2014), Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine wrote:

[E]ven if one accepts that those who manage public corporations may, outside of the corporate sales process, treat the best interests of other corporate constituencies as an end equal to the best interests of stockholders, and believes that stockholders should not be afforded additional influence over those managers, those premises do very little to actually change the managers’ incentives in a way that would encourage them to consider the interests of anyone other than stockholders. . . . even if corporate law supposedly grants directors the authority to give other constituencies equal consideration to stockholders outside of the sale context, it employs an unusual accountability structure to enable directors to act as neutral balancers of the diverse, and not always complementary, interests affected by corporate conduct. In that accountability structure, owners of equity securities are the only constituency given any rights. Stockholders get to elect directors. Stockholders get to vote on mergers and substantial asset sales. Stockholders get to inspect the books and records. Stockholders get the right to sue. No

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House Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, sent a formal request to a slew of federal agencies to share trading data collected in connection with the Volcker Rule. The Volcker Rule prohibits U.S. banks from engaging in proprietary trading (effective July 21, 2015), while permitting legitimate market-making and hedging activities.  The Volcker Rule restricts commercial banks (and affiliates) from investing investing in certain hedge funds and private equity, and imposes enhanced prudential requirements on systemically identified non-bank institutions engaged in such activities.

Representative Maloney requested  the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to analyze seven quantitative trading metrics that regulators have been collecting since 2014 including: (1) risk and position limits and usage; (2) risk factor sensitivities; (3) value-at-risk (VaR) and stress VaR; (4) comprehensive profit and loss attribution; (5) inventory turnover; (6) inventory aging; and (7) customer facing trade ratios.

Representative Maloney requested the agencies analyze the data and respond to the following questions:

  • The extent to which the data showed significant changes in banks’ trading activities leading up to the July 21, 2015 effective date for the prohibition on

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The concept of private prisons has always seemed off to me.  Prisons have a role in society, but the idea of running such institutions for profit, it seems to me, aligns incentives in an improper way. The U.S. Justice Department apparently agrees and said yesterday that it plans to end the use of private prisons.  The announcement sent stocks tumbling for two private prison companies, Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) and GEO.  Both dropped as much as 40% and remain down more than 30% from where they were before the announcement.   

Obviously, this can’t make shareholders happy, but I figured this had to be a known risk. I was right — CCA’s 10-K makes clear that such government decisions related to future contracts could lead to a reduction in their profitability.  So, the disclosure seems proper from a securities regulation perspective. Still, reading the disclosure raises some serious questions for me about the proper role of government.  I frankly find this kind of outsourcing chilling.  For example, CCA states: 

Our results of operations are dependent on revenues generated by our jails, prisons, and detention facilities, which are subject to the following risks associated with the corrections and detention industry.

We are subject to fluctuations in occupancy

…

There has been a lot of debate online about Ryan Lochte (#LochteGate or #LochMess) and whether he and his swimming friends were actually robbed in Rio after their Olympic events had finished. See here, here, and here for some of the commentary. 

Lawyer Dan Eaton opines that Ryan Lochte is unlikely to go to jail, even if he lied.

While I agree that jail time is unlikely based on the facts available at this time, Lochte’s endorsements could be at risk. Earlier this year, I blogged about morals clauses in endorsement contracts. If Lochte’s contracts include morals clauses (as many do), and if he lied about the robbery, it is possible that he may lose some lucrative endorsements deals. It is still not clear what the motive for lying was (if they did lie). I assume we will learn more in the next few days.   

Update: Speedo and Ralph Lauren dropped (or are not renewing) sponsorship of Ryan Lochte. Spokespeople for both companies cited Lochte’s statements about the occurrence in Rio. My wife let me know that some are now calling Lochte “Swim Shaddy.”

In the spring of 2012, around the time that Facebook purchased Instagram for roughly $1 billion, I was teaching an M&A class.

At the time, I had difficulty explaining why Facebook would pay that amount of money for a company that was not only not profitable, but also had no revenue. I spoke as someone trained to use multiples EBITDA and as someone who did not (and still does not) have an Instagram account.

Now, over four years later, Forbes estimates Instagram’s value at $25billion to $50billion. That valuation still requires some creativity, as Instagram had sales of “only” $630 million in 2015. Instagram, however, has added roughly 100 million new users in the last 9 months and is projected to have revenue of $1.5billion this year. While there is reason to be wary of projections, the projected sales for Instagram in 2018 is an impressive $5billion.

This drives home that valuation is as much art as science, and the conventional valuation methods will not work well for every company. In that deal, I imagine Instagram’s technology, brand, and the user base were all large value drivers. With the benefit of hindsight, Instagram is looking like a good acquisition for Facebook, even if the current projections end