Securities Regulation

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Regular readers of this blog know that I have chastised the SEC on several occasions for its lengthy delay in adopting rules to implement the exemption for crowdfunded securities offerings. (It has now been 1,268 days since the President signed the bill, 998 days past the statutory rulemaking deadline, and 702 days since the SEC proposed the rules.)

The long wait may soon be over. According to BNA, SEC Chair Mary Jo White said yesterday that the SEC will finish adopt its crowdfunding rules in the “very near term.”

I don’t know exactly what “very near term” means to a government official. Given my luck, it probably means immediately prior to the two crowdfunding presentations I’m scheduled to give in October. Nothing like a little last-minute juggling to keep me on my toes.

Yesterday (September 22, 2015) the SEC announced proposed rules regarding mutual funds and ETFs aimed at regulating liquidity and redemption risks as well as enhancing disclosures.  Included in the 400+ pages of proposed rules and analysis, the SEC focused on swing pricing, a practice to mitigate the impact of forward pricing required under Rule 22c-1 of the Investment Company Act. Before this feels too in the weeds of securities law, let’s discuss what this means.  Funds are required to redeem shareholders’ interests at NAV (net asset value pricing), when faced with redemption requests by shareholders wanting to exit the fund.  The fund then sells assets to pay the NAV to the departing shareholder or keeps a certain pool of assets liquid to meet such requests.  The costs of these trades or lost investment cost of the liquid assets are born by the shareholders who remain in the funds.  Additionally, shareholders who purchase new shares of the fund, do so at the daily NAV, which doesn’t reflect the liquidity cost imposed by the departing shareholders.  Similarly, when the fund receives the investment of new shareholders, the fund invests that money, but the purchase price NAV does not reflect the trading…

Haskell Murray had an interesting post on Friday about businesses buying fake reviews, followers, or friends online.  That post led me to think about another issue—if a company did that, could it be liable under Rule 10b-5 for securities fraud?

Consider this scenario: An investor is thinking about investing in a company called Ebusiness, Inc. She carefully reviews the company’s online presence and sees that Ebusiness has more followers and friends than anyone else in the industry. The reviews of its products are overwhelmingly positive. She concludes that Ebusiness is destined for greatness and buys its stock.

Later, the press discloses that most of Ebusiness’s followers and friends, and most of its online product reviews, are fake. Ebusiness paid someone else to produce them. The price of Ebusiness’s stock drops precipitously. Would Ebusiness be liable under Rule 10b-5?

Rule 10b-5 makes it unlawful “to make any untrue statement of a material fact . . . in connecton with the purchase or sale of any security. There’s no question that Ebusiness, through its paid agent, made fraudulent statements. There’s also no question that the investor relied on those fraudulent statements and suffered a loss when the truth became known. The…

I think my life as a compliance officer would have been much easier had the DOJ issued its latest memo when I was still in house. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch has heard the criticism and knows that her agency may face increased scrutiny from the courts. Thus the DOJ has announced via the “Yates Memorandum” that it’s time for some executives to go to jail. Companies will no longer get favorable deferred or nonprosecution agreements unless they cooperate at the beginning of the investigation and provide information about culpable individuals.

This morning I provided a 7-minute interview to a reporter from my favorite morning show NPR’s Marketplace. My 11 seconds is here. Although it didn’t make it on air, I also discussed (and/or thought about) the fact that compliance officers spend a great deal of time training employees, developing policies, updating board members on their Caremark duties, scanning the front page of the Wall Street Journal to see what company had agreed to sign a deferred prosecution agreement, and generally hoping that they could find something horrific enough to deter their employees from going rogue so that they wouldn’t be…

Andrew Vollmer, a law professor at the University of Virginia and a former SEC deputy general counsel, has written two excellent papers on SEC enforcement.

The first, SEC Revanchism and the Expansion of Primary Liability under Section 17(a) and Rule 10b-5, is a critical look at the SEC’s decision in the Flannery administrative proceeding. If you’re a securities lawyer and you’re not familiar with Flannery, you should be. It stakes out a number of broad interpretations of liability under Rule 10b-5 and section 17(a) of the Securities Act. I (and Professor Vollmer) believe some of those positions are inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent, but the SEC’s is clearly trying to set up an argument for judicial deference under Chevron.

Professor Vollmer’s second article is Four Ways to Improve SEC Enforcement. He discusses the problems with SEC administrative proceedings and how to fix them.

Both articles are definitely worth reading.

I don’t agree with SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar on many issues. But I agree with his recent call for transparency in the disqualification waiver process.

A number of SEC rules, such as some of the offering registration exemptions, are not available to companies that have engaged in certain misbehavior in the past. But the SEC has the authority to waive those disqualifications, and it often does. Or, I should say, the SEC staff often does. As Commissioner Aguilar points out, the commissioners are often unaware that a waiver has been requested. And, as with staff no-action letters, it’s often unclear why some waivers are granted and others are not.

I’m not a fan of the whole idea of discretionary waivers. Allowing government employees to waive the law on a case-by-case basis with little explanation strikes me as inconsistent with the rule of law. But, if we’re going to have them, the process should be as transparent as possible.

Today’s post will discuss the DC Circuit’s recent ruling striking down portions of Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rule on First Amendment grounds for the second time. Judge Randolph, writing for the majority, clearly enjoyed penning this opinion. He quoted Charles Dickens, Arthur Kostler, and George Orwell while finding that the SEC rule requiring companies to declare whether their products are “DRC Conflict Free” fails strict scrutiny analysis. But I won’t engage in any constitutional analysis here. I leave that to the fine blogs and articles that have delved into that area of the law. See here, here here, here, here, and more.  The NGOs that have vigorously fought for the right of consumers to learn how companies are sourcing their tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold have had understandably strong reactions. One considers the ruling a dangerous precedent on corporate personhood. Global Witness, a well respected NGO, calls it a dangerous and damaging ruling.

Regular readers of this blog know that I filed an amicus brief arguing that the law meant to defund the rebels raping and pillaging in the Democratic Republic of Congo was more likely to harm than help the intended recipients—the Congolese people.

This weekend I will be in Panama filling in at the last minute for the corporate law session for an executive LLM progam. My students are practicing lawyers from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Paraguay and have a variety of legal backgrounds. My challenge is to fit key corporate topics (other than corporate governance, compliance, M & A, finance, and accounting) into twelve hours over two days for people with different knowledge levels and experiences. The other faculty members hail from law schools here and abroad as well as BigLaw partners from the United States and other countries.

Prior to joining academia I spent several weeks a year training/teaching my internal clients about legal and compliance matters for my corporation. This required an understanding of US and host country concepts. I have also taught in executive MBA programs and I really enjoyed the rich discussion that comes from students with real-world practical experience. I know that I will have that experience again this weekend even though I will probably come back too brain dead to be coherent for my civil procedure and business associations classes on Tuesday.

I have put together a draft list of topics with the help…

The following position posting was provided to us via e-mail:

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW (CAMDEN CAMPUS) invites applications from entry-level and lateral candidates for one or more tenure-track or tenured faculty positions. Possible areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to, corporate law, corporate governance, commercial law, securities regulation, and other areas of business law. We will consider candidates with an interest in building upon our newly devised Certificate Program in Corporate/Business Law. All applicants should have a distinguished academic background and either great promise or a record of excellence in both scholarship and teaching. We encourage applications from women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and others whose background, experience, and viewpoints would contribute to the diversity of our faculty. Contact: Professor Arthur Laby, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee; Rutgers University School of Law; 217 North Fifth Street; Camden, NJ; 08102; alaby@rutgers.edu. Rutgers University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all in every aspect of its operations.

Joan Heminway’s post last week about comparative corporate law  got me thinking about international coverage in my own courses. Joan’s post reviewed a book designed for a stand-alone comparative corporate law course, but I’ve been wondering whether we should include more comparative material in the basic business associations and securities regulation courses.

The case for discussing the corporate and securities law of other countries is clear. Capital markets are becoming increasingly global. U.S. companies are selling securities in other countries and U.S. investors are investing in foreign companies. Initially, globalization affected primarily large multinational companies, but with the expanding use of the Internet to sell securities, even the smallest business can offer securities to investors in other countries.

Under the internal affairs rule, it’s the corporate law of the country of incorporation that’s important, no matter where the lawyer is practicing or where the corporation or the shareholder is located. And a company selling securities to investors outside the U.S. needs to consider the effect of other countries’ securities laws. Foreign counsel may be retained to deal with such issues, but shouldn’t the U.S. lawyer have at least a rudimentary understanding of foreign corporate and securities laws and how…