Earlier today, I received a communication from the American Bar Association’s Governmental Affairs Office.  It was a request for action (as would often come from a government affairs office) relating to the ENABLERS Act amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  The contents admittedly somewhat stunned me.  I include them in pertinent part below.

This . . . Senate amendment, like the similar amendment contained in the House-passed version of the NDAA, would regulate many business lawyers and law firms under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and could require them to report a substantial amount of attorney-client privileged and other protected client information to the government.

The ENABLERS Act amendment, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), would change the BSA’s definition of “financial institution” to include lawyers and law firms that provide legal services to clients involving company formation, trust services, acquiring or disposing of interests in those entities, and many other specified financial activities. It would also require the Treasury Department to issue new regulations that could subject these lawyers and law firms to some or all of the BSA’s requirements for financial institutions. This could force you to submit Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) on your clients’ financial transactions (without notifying the clients); identify and verify your clients’ accounts to the government; establish due diligence policies that could conflict with state supreme court rules; create costly and burdensome new anti-money laundering programs within your law firm; and undergo periodic or random audits to assess compliance. 

I have not been following this at all.  I wonder if any of you have been . . . .  Of course, the ostensible purpose is to combat money laundering–certainly a worthy goal.  But the incursion on the lawyer-client relationship, assuming the description above is accurate (and I am still wading into this, in all candor), does seem rather vast.  Please leave comments if you have thoughts to offer.  I am intrigued.

My Akron Law colleague Camilla Hrdy recently published The Value in Secrecy in the Fordham Law Review.  You can find the SSRN version here.  Below is the abstract.

Trade secret law is seen as the most inclusive of intellectual property regimes. So long as information can be kept secret, the wisdom goes, it can be protected under trade secret law, even if patent and copyright protections are unavailable. But keeping it a secret does not magically transform information into a trade secret. The information must also derive economic value from being kept secret from others. This elusive statutory requirement–called “independent economic value”–might at first glance seem redundant, especially in the context of litigation. After all, if information had no value, why would the plaintiff have bothered to keep it secret, and why would the parties be arguing over the right to use or disclose it? Surely, well-kept secrets that end up in court must be valuable.

 

That assumption is pervasive. But it is wrong. Secrecy does not demonstrate value. Even a company’s best-kept secrets might be commercially worthless if vetted against what is known in the rest of the industry. Nor does the decision to pursue litigation indicate value. Trade secret litigants have plenty of exogenous reasons for pursuing lawsuits that have little to do with information’s inherent value. Most importantly, “value” is not the statutory standard; the standard is economic value that comes specifically from secrecy.

 

Some federal courts have begun to call out weak assertions of independent economic value and, in the process, are redefining the role of this neglected statutory requirement. By analyzing this case law and drawing on insights from the larger field of intellectual property law, this Article generates a typology of “value failures” that can arise in any given trade secret dispute–amount failures, causation failures, type failures, and timing failures. Courts in trade secret cases should screen for value failures far more consistently than they currently do. Otherwise, courts risk giving trade secret status to mere confidential information. This leads to wasted court resources and has detrimental consequences for competition, innovation, speech, and employee mobility.

I previously posted about the increasing use by shareholders of proxy-exempt solicitations under Rule 14a-6(g).  That rule allows shareholders who are not seeking proxy authority to solicit other shareholders without filing a proxy statement, but under some circumstances, any holder of more than $5 million of stock must file their written solicitation materials with the SEC.  These days, however, even shareholders who do not need to file with the SEC choose to do so voluntarily, because EDGAR serves as a convenient and cheap mechanism by which materials can be distributed to other shareholders.

Well, Dipesh Bhattarai, Brian Blank, Tingting Liu, Kathryn Schumann-Foster, and Tracie Woidtke have just done a study of these solicitations: Proxy Exempt Solicitation Campaigns.  They find that a variety of institutional investors make these filings, including public pension funds (38%), union funds (26%), and other institutions, including hedge funds (22%).  The filings may be used to support shareholder proposals that are already on the ballot – and thus to exceed the 500-word limit for such proposals – and to oppose management proposals, such as director nominations and say-on-pay.  And these filings are taken seriously: 74% of them are accessed by a major investment bank, and they appear to have an effect on voting outcomes and forced CEO turnover.

So this is fascinating.  The rule, adopted in 1992, at least as I always understood it, was intended to ensure that all shareholders receive the same information, and to allow that information to be publicly vetted, so that large shareholders can’t lobby others in secret (and away from management prying eyes).  But with modern computerized filings, the rule has been, functionally, hacked, to serve as a low-cost mechanism by which shareholders can communicate with other shareholders – and shareholders find it useful.  That’s a good thing, and it tells us that maybe the SEC should in fact be more proactive in sponsoring platforms for shareholder communication.  Obviously, there are plenty of electronic forums today where shareholders congregate, but these are generally thought to appeal to retail shareholders and may have a high noise to signal ratio.  Now that the SEC knows it can provide an easy distribution mechanism for more formalized communications, I wonder if it’s worth building out that possibility even more.

Dear BLPB Readers:

“The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will host its annual Wharton Financial
Regulation Conference on April 14, 2023.

We issue a call for papers to any scholars from any discipline—law, economics, political science,
history, business, and beyond—to submit papers on any topic related to financial regulation,
broadly construed. Special attention will be paid to junior scholars and those new to the financial
regulation community, but we welcome all submissions, including from those who have presented
before.

To submit a paper, please include an unpublished manuscript not exceeding 25,000 words and a CV
to conference organizer David Zaring, by February 1, 2023. Selected presenters will be notified by
email by February 15, 2023.”

The call for papers is also Download 2023 Wharton Fin Reg Call for Papers.

 

Dear BLPB Readers:

The ABA’s Derivatives and Futures Law Committee’s virtual mid-year event on October 6, 2022, included fireside chats with CFTC Commissioners Johnson, Goldsmith-Romero, Mersinger, and Pham.  I wasn’t able to watch these interesting and highly-informative discussions in real-time, so I’m happy that recordings are now available and wanted to share a link to each with BLPB readers!

Fireside chat with Commissioner Johnson

Fireside chat with Commissioner Goldsmith-Romero

Fireside chat with Commissioner Mersinger

Fireside chat with Commissioner Pham

 

    

How many of you who are or were engaged in the practice of law were asked to help a senior lawyer in your office prepare for or present at a continuing legal education (CLE) program?  How many of you felt well prepared for that experience when it presented itself?  I remember being asked to help script and help present at a number of CLE programs during the era in my practice in which I was still working on figuring things out.  The associated imposter syndrome was real.  I hope to make my students better prepared for that kind of engagement in their law practice.

As many readers know, I teach Corporate Finance as an experiential offering–a limited enrollment three-credit-hour planning and drafting course.  I teach the course in two 75-minute segments each week.  Along the way, I engage students with related practice experiences.  One of them is a CLE-like teaching activity.  Specifically, as the syllabus describes, it is a course requirement (part of each student’s class participation grade) that they participate in a “class expert experience.”

Class expert experience: Together with a partner, you are required to serve as a class expert as part of a peer-to-peer teaching experience once during the course of the semester. You will have the opportunity to choose a topic from a list of open assignments and a partner for your expert teaching experience. You may sign up on the class website starting the second week of the semester. Do not wait too long to do this.

On your day as a class expert, you and your partner will lead a class discussion on the topic of the reading assignment (plan for 45-60 minutes, since there will be questions and interruptions). I will supply you with substantive guidance on coverage and make myself available to you as you prepare for your in-class expert presentation. The format for your presentation can be anything you want–PowerPoint slides, real-time document analysis (using the document camera or otherwise), poetry readings, a skit, songs, a game–anything you want. If you decide to use PowerPoint slides or other projections, please let me know so that we can coordinate your use of the classroom technology.

Apart from accurate and complete substantive coverage of the assigned material, the only requirements for your expert experience are that you (a) involve the rest of the class in your in-class presentation, (b) illustrate or suggest ways in which transaction participants could use the material you are presenting to draft the operative documents differently to better achieve their objectives, and (c) finish within the allotted time. These four requirements—accurate and complete coverage, audience engagement, drafting suggestions, and time efficiency—can be met in many ways. As an audience-participation component, for example, you may want to ask questions of your classmates or involve them in an exercise, or you could take a poll on an issue relating to the topic. FYI, our TWEN site has polling functions and several other teaching tools. Zoom also has a polling capability, and there are other software applications to which we have access that also may be of interest. Just let me know in advance what you want or envision, and I will try to ensure that you have the resources you need. You may make drafting suggestions orally or in writing or through interaction with the rest of the class. Again, use whatever teaching method or methods you want–just make sure you meet the four requirements.

We try to have some fun along the way, too.  Donuts and Halloween candy/notions become participation incentives, Kahoot! competitions test class learning, and songs (Pink Floyd’s Money has made at least one appearance) reinforce points made in memorable ways.  This part of the course has evolved over the years as I have learned from what students do and as the course learning objectives become more refined.  Interestingly, in past course evaluations, students have described this course component as both the most challenging and the most rewarding component of the course.  Sometimes, the same student will describe the experience both ways, citing to the distinctive reward that comes from confronting and responding to a significant challenge.  

I share all this with you today because my last Corporate Finance student class experts present on Wednesday (on the structure and key contents of M&A agreements).  I look forward to it, but I also regret that this part of the course is coming to an end.  As usual, and I have been impressed by what students have done and are doing to both learn and teach (all, in short order).

Back in September, I posted about the Buzzfeed case that I was watching in Delaware Chancery.  Well, now a decision has issued, and the whole situation remains intriguing. 

In Buzzfeed v. Anderson, employees of privately-held Buzzfeed signed an arbitration agreement with the company concerning their employment, and also received equity compensation.  Buzzfeed went public via a SPAC merger, whereby the old private company became the subsidiary of the publicly-traded SPAC.  Employees’ equity comp was converted into stock of the new, publicly traded entity, but, through a series of unfortunate events, they were unable to trade for the first few days.  That cost them a lot, because the stock price plummeted immediately thereafter.  Relying on their employment agreements, the employees brought mass arbitration claims against the public company and several insiders.  Those defendants then sued in Delaware for a declaration that they were not bound by the arbitration agreement, and that in fact the employees were bound to bring any claims in Delaware, because the new, publicly traded entity had a forum selection provision in its charter.

In her decision, Vice Chancellor Zurn held that the arbitration clause did not apply to the company defendants (now plaintiffs in the Delaware action; it gets confusing).  The entity the employees had sued was the publicly traded parent of their former employer; the parent had not signed the arbitration agreement.  The insiders, as well, had not signed the agreement, which was between the employees and private-Buzzfeed.  VC Zurn observed that the insiders might have had rights, as nonsignatories, to force the employees into arbitration if they had sued in court, but it didn’t work the other way around.  Op. at 23-24.

I’m not an arbitration expert, so this doctrine was new to me and just highlights the Kafka-esque nature of how arbitration contracts work these days.

But! What actually interested me was the effect of the forum-selection provision. 

As I’ve previously mentioned, I recently posted a new paper to SSRN: Inside Out (or, One State to Rule them All): New Challenges to the Internal Affairs Doctrine, forthcoming in the Wake Forest Law Review.  It’s about how the internal affairs doctrine is encroaching on other areas of law, including employment law, and the Buzzfeed case seemed like a perfect example.  Here you had employees suing about a compensation dispute, and their employment claims were (according to the company defendants) converted into shareholder claims by virtue of a charter provision, over which the employees had no control, that operated to override their for-real contracts.

The problem with Buzzfeed though, from my perspective, was that the substantive claims of the employees – the ones they actually filed in their arbitrations – were pretty explicitly rooted in their status as stockholders.  They brought claims under Section 11 of the Securities Act (which is a little strange because, as I understand it, the whole issue here was that the employees’ shares were not registered when they were supposed to be).  They explicitly invoked the companies’ status as a Delaware corporation to argue that Delaware law applied.  It was only later, when they got to court in Delaware, that they tried to recast their claims as related to their employment, and therefore not subject to the charter forum provision.

So. I didn’t mention the case in my Inside Out paper, but I was curious to see what VC Zurn would do with it.  And she kind of split the baby. 

There were two separate arguments: The employees claimed Delaware had no personal jurisdiction over them, and therefore this case was simply improperly filed; and the company defendants claimed that the employees were bound bring any disputes in Delaware.

On the former argument, VC Zurn found that the employees had consented to suit in Delaware via the forum provision and therefore she had jurisdiction to hear the dispute, Op. at 39-43, but on the latter, she held that until the employees’ lodged their claims in a court, she could not determine if they fell within the forum provision, Op. at 47-48.

Those holdings are … difficult to reconcile.  If she has not determined whether the claims substantively fall within the forum provision, how can she know whether the employees “agreed” to be sued in Delaware via the forum provision?  As best I can tell, the holding had to do with her interpretation of the employees’ arguments; the employees argued that their claims were not covered under the forum provision for the purposes of whether they had to bring their claims in Delaware, but not for jurisdictional purposes.  Op. at 40-41.

Anyway.  As it stands, I’m not sure there are any grand lessons (other than, as I previously posted, the hot mess that was the SPAC frenzy), but I will continue to keep an eye on things to see where they go from here.

Last month, I posted about an experiment I conducted with students and international lawyers. I’ve asked my law student, Kaitlyn Jauregui to draft this post summarizing the groups’ reasoning and provide her insights. Next week, I’ll provide mine in light of what I’m hearing at various conferences, including this week’s International Bar Association meeting. This post is in her words.

After watching The Social Dilemma, participants completed a group exercise by deciding which social issues were a priority in the eyes of different tech industry stakeholders. The Social Dilemma is a 2020 docudrama that exposes how social media controls that influences the behavior, mental health, and political views of users by subjecting them to various algorithms. Director Jeff Orlowski interviewed founding and past tech employees of some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley to bring awareness to viewers.  

Groups of primarily American college students, primarily American law students, one group of Latin American lawyers, and one group of international lawyers completed the exercise. Each of the groups deliberated from the perspective of a CEO, investor, consumer, or NGO.  Acting as that stakeholder, the team then ranked the following issues in order of importance: Incitements to violence, Labor Issues, Suppression of Speech, Mental Health, Surveillance, and Fake News. 

How The Groups Performed

The college students attend an American law school, but they are not necessarily all American. The groups’ logic behind their rankings could not be provided. I provided the rankings in the last post.

Law Students

The law students attend and American law school, but they are not necessarily all American. They considered six social issues.

Team CEO: Law Students

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Surveillance

3.    Mental Health

4.    Fake News

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    Incitements to Violence

The law students assigned to view the issues as a CEO based their rankings on an internal to external approach. They believed the CEO is responsible for the operations of the company so would first try to solve internal issues such as labor issues because that would directly affect the bottom line. Surveillance and mental health ranked #2 because the team assumed that these issues directly related to customer satisfaction and retention. Because this group took on the role as a tech CEO and not a social media CEO, they did not view 4-6 as important. Fake news was only relevant if it was about the company. Suppression of speech was not problematic to them because it would not directly impact their business. Finally, they did not view incitement to violence as relevant to the business operations so ranked it last.

Team Investor: Law Students

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Incitements to Violence

3.    Surveillance

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    Fake News

6.    Mental Health

The law students who prioritized social issues as if they were an Investor approached the task considering market forces. They chose labor issues first because it poses challenges to business operations. Whatever looks bad for revenue generation such as incitement to violence and surveillance means their investment would look bad as well. It is important to note they viewed this assignment as an institutional investor. The remaining factors were not imperative to the success of the tech company so were ranked lower.

Team NGO: Law Students

1.    Fake News

2.    Incitement to Violence

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    Surveillance

6.    Suppression of Speech

The law students who took on a role as an NGO based their sense of urgency on the danger and risks the involved in each issue. At the top was fake news because they thought misinformation when taken as fact was unhealthy for making decisions and forming opinions. Incitement to violence closely followed because political polarization can lead to hateful actions outside of social media. They found mental health to be important because of statistics showing teens committing self-harm or worse as a result of social media use. Although labor Issues are abroad, the NGO team could not ignore it. Surveillance was not key to them because they believed platforms are already taking measures against it. And lastly, suppression of speech was not as important to them as deleting hate speech and fake news.

Team Consumer: Law Students

1.    Surveillance

2.    Mental Health

3.    Incitement to Violence

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    Fake News

6.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

The law students who took on their natural roles as consumers found social issues more important than financial forces. They referred to the many advertisements that tech companies like Apple and Google are posting against surveillance. The effects of social media on mental health and even physical health also stood out to them. As a group of law students, they are informed individuals who can spot fake news so did not see that as a priority. Lastly, labor issues are not in the consumers’ sight so are out of mind and therefore not a priority.

Latin American Lawyers

*The Latin American Lawyers did not consider Fake News or Incitements to Violence.

Team CEO: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Surveillance

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Mental Health

5.    –

6.    –

The Latin American lawyers ranked the social issues regarding business success and long-term goals. Labor issues were their top concern because it influences the legal challenges faced by the company and the costs of production. “Information is power” so surveillance restrictions would greatly decrease money earned from selling data gathered. They did not see suppression of speech as an issue because the company itself is not limited. Mental health was ultimately last because it does not impair business operations.

Team Investor: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Mental Health

2.    Surveillance

3.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

4.    Suppression of Speech

5.    –

6.    –

The Latin American lawyers listed their priorities as a socially responsible Investor. Mental health triggered the most urgency for them because the negative influence of social media on users is growing and is not slowing down. Heavy surveillance conflicts with the rights of persons like themselves so it is a great risk for them. Although labor issues were important, they did not think of it as a widespread issue affecting large populations of people. Lastly, suppression of speech was not a concern at all for them.

Team NGO: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Surveillance

2.    Suppression of Speech / Fake News

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    –

6.    –

The Latin American lawyers who participated as an NGO focused their efforts on user experience and rights. They found surveillance to be a growing concern and a human right violation for users. Suppression of speech was also very important to them, especially in the scope of the team’s nationality because of political distress in their home countries. For countries with political instability, their citizens are more conscious of infringed rights through social media. Fake news and censorship on virtual platforms can ultimately destroy the democracy of countries in their point of view. The team preferred life over work so chose to rank mental health higher than labor issues.

Team Consumer: Latin American Lawyers

1.    Surveillance

2.    Suppression of Speech / Fake News

3.    Mental Health

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    –

6.    –

The Latin American lawyers used their personal perspective as consumers to rank in accordance with social concerns. Surveillance was seen as a major problem because it makes users uncomfortable knowing that their activity is tracked and sold as data. Suppression of speech was grouped with fake news as an important issue regarding the rights and freedom of the consumers. The gatekeeping of information from mainstream media in general was a concern for these consumers because they feel as if they are being controlled and concealed from the truth. Although the negative mental health results on teens from social media is important, the consumers thought this was the responsibility of parents and not of other consumers. Labor issues were of no concern because the consumers felt as if they have no control over the matter. 

International Lawyers

The International Group comprised of participants from Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Jamaica, Mexico, Nepal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. The group was not assigned to rank Mental Health as a social issue. The groups’ logic behind their rankings could not be provided.

Team CEO: International Lawyers

1.    Fake News

2.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

3.    Surveillance

4.    Incitement to Violence

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    –

Team Investor: International Lawyers (Socially Responsible)

1.    Incitement to Violence

2.    Fake News

3.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

4.    Surveillance

5.    Suppression of Speech

6.    –

Team Investor: International Lawyers (Institutional)

1.    Labor Issues in the Supply Chain

2.    Incitements to Violence

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Fake News

5.    Surveillance

6.    –

Team NGO: International Lawyers

1.    Fake News

2.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

3.    Suppression of Speech

4.    Incitements to Violence

5.    Surveillance

6.    –

 

Team Consumer: International Lawyers

1.    Incitements to Violence

2.    Suppression of Speech

3.    Fake News

4.    Labor Issues in Supply Chain

5.    Surveillance

6.    –

 Insights

When given a business or financial oriented role, the teams ranked the social issues by focusing on whether it impacts company performance. Teams with community or advocate roles tended to rank the social issues according to impact on society. Team CEO prioritized labor issues and surveillance the most. Labor issues along with incitements to violence were of top concern for Team Investor. Fake news was the number one issue for Team NGO. Team Consumer, which reflects the average personal view of the participants, believed incitements to violence and surveillance were the most pressing social issues in the tech industry. Labor issues were the least important to the consumer participants, which is interesting in scope of consumer purchase decisions overall and not just in tech.

The Team Consumer data is reflective of each of the groups’ personal beliefs because all participants are also consumers. The College Students prioritized mental health. Both the law students and the Latin American lawyers found surveillance the most important tech issue. International lawyers instead thought incitement to violence more pressing. A possible explanation is that people in the U.S. and Latin America are trying to protect their privacy from intrusive technology. Because the international lawyers had participants from countries where incitement to violence are occurring, that may be why it was important to them.

Suppression of speech closely followed for Latin American Lawyers and International Lawyers whereas Mental Health was the second priority for the primarily American law Students. Many citizens of countries around the globe face oppressive governments that censor speech which may be influential in why Suppression of Speech was ranked highly. In the United States, citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech and press which is why this issue may not be as concerning for them. American teens also suffer from more mental illness as a result of social media use, possibly why it is second place.

Practices in corporate culture and opinions on social issues are influenced by the ethnic makeup of the employees. Although the stakeholder roles the groups took are the most determinative factor, their nationality is naturally a bias in their decision-making.

The Lewis Model is a triangular spectrum that identifies the prominent features of different cultures. Richard Lewis spoke 10 languages, visited 135 countries, and work in over 20 of them to find observable variability in social behavior. He recognized that stereotypes are unfair, but also emphasized that social norms are standards in each country. There are three defined points of culture: Linear Active, Multi-active, and Reactive.

  • Linear actives — those who plan, arrange, organize, do one thing at a time, follow action chains. They are truthful rather than diplomatic and do not fear confrontation. Their work and as well as personal life is based on logic rather than emotions. Linear actives like facts, fixed agenda and they are very job oriented. They are able to separate social-private and professional life.
  • Multi-actives — people belonging to this cultural category are able to do many things at once, planning their priorities not according to a time schedule, but according to the relative thrill or importance that each appointment brings with it. These cultures are very talkative and impulsive. These characteristics predict their orientation on people. They feel uncomfortable in silence. Multi-active people prefer face to face sessions.
  • Reactives — member of this group has in the priority list courtesy and respect on the top. This group is best listening culture. Listening quietly, reacting calmly and carefully to the other side’s proposals are their traits as well. Reactive cultures are the world’s best listeners in as much as they concentrate on what the speaker is saying, do not interrupt a speaker while the discourse or presentation is on-going. Reactive people have large reserves of energy. Reactives tend to use names less frequently than other cultural categories.

How does the Lewis Model explain the results?

The primarily American college and law students fall under linear-active with their priorities aligned with individual rights and performance.

The Latin American lawyers are multi-active, think about the social issues in terms of impact on the community and on building relationships.

The International lawyers are comprised of participants all over the world, bringing in aspects from all over the spectrum.

The Lewis Model most likely plays a part in how each participant individually arrived at their own rankings and how they then communicated to agree on a reflective ranking together. The conversations guiding to the final result would have probably shown more insight as to how and why these social issues are important.

Age

The age of the participants is another influential factors because of the generational variation in trust in surveilling technologies. Generation Z, Millennials, and Generation X+ were asked in a survey how comfortable they felt with programs like Alexa or Siri on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being very and 10 being not.

Generation Z: 7.73

Millennials: 8.28

Generation X+: 8.90

Older generations are more uneasy about virtual assistant technology.

With age comes more experience and better foresight. Researchers in Texas found that “older adults use the experience in decision-making accumulated over their lifetime to determine the long-term utility and not just the immediate benefit before making a choice. However, younger adults tend to focus their decision-making on instant gratification.”

How does age explain the results?

The majority of the college and law students were Generation Z or Millennials whereas the practicing attorneys were mostly Millennials or more senior.

As generations progress, younger people are more comfortable with surveillance technology than older people.

Expertise

Expertise of the participants surely impacted how they ranked social issues. The knowledge of experts in comparison to novices gives them a wider and practical approach to business and social issues. Here are some key aspects:

  1. Experts notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by novices.
  2. Experts have acquired a great deal of content knowledge that is organized in ways that reflect a deep understanding of their subject matter.
  3. Experts’ knowledge cannot be reduced to sets of isolated facts or propositions but, instead, reflects contexts of applicability: that is, the knowledge is “conditionalized” on a set of circumstances.
  4. Experts are able to flexibly retrieve important aspects of their knowledge with little attentional effort.
  5. Though experts know their disciplines thoroughly, this does not guarantee that they are able to teach others.
  6. Experts have varying levels of flexibility in their approach to new situations.

Perhaps the practicing attorneys foresaw further down the line as to why one social issue was more pressing than another.

Thank you, Kaitlyn for providing your analysis of the results. Next week, I’ll provide mine.

I’ve often been skeptical about how vigorously regulatory groups will police their members.   A recent membership revocation from the CFP Board showed little tolerance for one financial services professional’s failure “to treat fellow professionals and others with dignity, courtesy, and respect in violation of Standard A.7 of the Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct (Code and Standards). ” 

That rule provides that “A CFP® professional must treat Clients, prospective Clients, fellow professionals, and others with dignity, courtesy, and respect.”  What does that mean?  Well, I can tell one thing the CFP Board thinks it requires you not to do.

The public release details how David R. Nute of Sequim, Washington responded to a client who asked about dropping some documents off in person: 

a former prospective Client, who submitted a written grievance to CFP Board, asked Mr. Nute if she could drop off copies of documents needed for a potential transaction in person at his office, rather than transmit them electronically. When Mr. Nute responded that his time was “too valuable” to make the trip to his office to pick up the documents, the former prospective Client sent him an email stating that she no longer desired to work with him. Mr. Nute replied to her email, stating, among other things: “It is totally ridiculous to expect me to drive into town and waste a couple hours of $1,000 hourly time” and “I was only trying to help and your reactions tell me why your husband left you.” 

Max Schatzow memorably characterized the CFP Board as enforcing a “no asshole” rule.

The enforcement proceeding also noted a number of aggravating factors including findings that “Mr. Nute did not treat CFP Board Counsel with dignity, respect, or professional courtesy and frequently referred to CFP Board Counsel in derogatory terms and insulted them in written correspondence and verbally during the hearing.”

The CFP Board is a pure self-regulatory organization.  It’s essentially a private club.  This means it has much more freedom to enforce vague rules than more quasi-governmental self-regulatory group like FINRA, the NFA, or other registered SROs.

Out of curiosity, I looked up Mr. Nute’s practice and found that he operates as a mortgage broker and investment adviser.  The URL to his website includes “reversemortgage.” It also includes a number of testimonials from clients attesting to his acumen in procuring reverse mortgages.  He also offers prospective clients, and perhaps the public generally a free copy of his book “Maximize Your Retirement Income and the TRUTH about Reverse Mortgages!”  

He is registered as an investment adviser with Creative Retirement Planning, Inc.  You can find his Form ADV Brochure on the SEC’s website.

 

Today, I finally had a chance to watch a recording of the September 20, 2022, meeting of the CFTC’s Energy & Environmental Markets Advisory Committee (EEMAC). In past posts, I’ve mentioned having coauthored my first energy paper and my involvement with the University of Oklahoma’s Robert M. Zinke Energy Management Program, the first of its kind in the U.S.! The roles of derivatives in energy and commodity markets is increasingly in the spotlight. For example, last spring, European energy traders reached out to the European Central Bank (ECB) for emergency liquidity support because of clearinghouse collateral calls, but the ECB declined to assist. And there was the LME nickel incident of March 2022 (a post here). Undoubtedly, the interconnections between energy and financial markets, particularly derivatives, are set to become increasingly critical, especially in the global transition to a clean energy future.

The EEMAC meeting focused on two topics: 1) “Investment in physical energy infrastructure and the effect on price volatility in the commodities markets” and 2) “The role of the metals market as components in transitional energy sources and the potential impact on financial markets regulated by the CFTC.” The agenda can be found is here. The EEMAC voted to recommend to the CFTC Commissioners that Subcommittees be formed to study/write reports on each topic.

I thought I’d also note a few areas of the meeting that I found particularly interesting. First, Derek Sammann from CME Group gave a fascinating presentation on The Impact of the Energy Transition on the Global Metals Markets (starts at about 2:01:30). The concluding slide had the statement: “More than anything, the energy transition is a Metals story.” Second, I listened intently to a couple of participants discuss aspects of the LME nickel incident (3:00:25). Third, I found several participants’ discussion of systemic risk, FCMs, and their capital requirements really insightful (1:40:18).