Welcome to the new Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law’s online companion! The new site was created to provide an efficient space dedicated to the work of the JCFL. The Blog portion of the site will continue to highlight current issues of business law through regularly updated posts authored by students and outside contributors. Emerging tax law issues, SEC investigations and regulation, international business law, and bankruptcy are topics that are frequently covered by the blog, which will also host commentary on recently published student notes, updates on previously published articles, and recaps of Journal sponsored events. The website will…
Author: Cassidy Mara
Does satellite deliver a better television viewing experience than cable? Contrary to DIRECTV’s advertising campaign purporting this to be true, in a lawsuit against those claims initiated by Time Warner Cable, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that there was no difference. In the absence of a preliminary injunction, companies injured by false advertisements (like Time Warner) suffer harm throughout the trial. As a result, a preliminary injunction is the premiere remedy for plaintiffs in these cases. In order to succeed on a motion for a preliminary injunction, the moving party must establish the four…
On October 30, 2015, Richard Squire of Fordham University School of Law, Eric Grossman of Morgan Stanley, and Richard Kim of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, discussed whether the United States is prepared for the next financial crisis. They believe it is already on the horizon. The panelists agreed that the US financial system is stronger today than it was in 2008, but that the country’s ability to respond to a crisis has been seriously weakened. The panel made it very clear that Congress’s response to the 2008 financial crisis, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010, failed…
Are we ready for the next financial crisis? According to Daniel Gallagher, absolutely not. Gallagher criticized the Dodd-Frank Act, with a bit of humor, in his keynote address at Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law’s Annual Symposium held on October 30, 2015. In his speech he alluded to Congress having a knee-jerk reaction to the financial crisis in its usual fashion. This sort of reaction is not completely uncharacteristic for Congress. In response to numerous financial crises like the Great Depression and those of the late 20th century, Congress was compelled to act. However, Dodd-Frank was historically ground breaking. It was the first…
The world has been rocked by data breaches in recent years. Sony Pictures Entertainment, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Home Depot, Target, Michael’s Stores, Inc., Premera Blue Cross, UPS, Staples, Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, Anthem Health Insurance, CVS- each of these companies has been implicated by a data breach within the past two years, and the list goes on. In 2014, the JPMorgan Chase Co. data breach alone affected 76 million households and seven million small businesses,[1] and this year 80 million patient records were hacked in the Anthem Health Insurance breach.[2] What happens, though, when the information is merely…
In August 2015, China devaluated its currency the YUAN sparking an international debate on whether this move will lead to a new financial crisis. During that month, headlines from all over the world included three words “YUAN”, “Financial”, and “Crisis”, leading to a turmoil on global markets. Five months have passed, and the stock market is yet to recover. This change in the Yuan had a global impact; what should have been a national problem, a slowdown in China’s economy, became a problem of the international community. Exploring the devaluation of the Yuan On August 11, 2015, the People’s Bank of…
The Changing Face of Corporate Compliance and Corporate Governance On Monday, February 9th, 2015, the Corporate Law Center hosted its annual symposium. This year’s topic was the “Changing Face of Corporate Compliance and Corporate Governance.” The symposium consisted of two panel discussions, and was followed by a keynote address given by Thomas Baxter, the General Counsel and Executive Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Professor Steve Thel, Fordham University School of Law, moderated the first panel. The topic of discussion was how the development of compliance over the past several decades has challenged established norms of…
On March 7, 2014 Jesse Litvak was convicted of ten counts of securities fraud on the basis of alleged misrepresentations made by Mr. Litvak in connection with the purchase and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities, in violation of 15 U.S.C. §§ 78(j) & 78ff.[1][2][3] The district court sentenced Mr. Litvak to 24 months of imprisonment and imposed a $1.75 million dollar fine. The court then denied Mr. Litvak’s motion for release pending his appeal. Subsequently, on July 2, 2014 the district court denied Litvak’s Rule 29 motion for acquittal and Rule 33 motion for a new trial. [4] The Government…
On Oct 16, 2014 the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) settled with Athena Capital Research (“Athena”)[1] over their High Frequency Trading (“HFT”) system, known as “Gravy,” that defrauded the Nasdaq. Athena carried out a series of “marking the close” [2] orders in an attempt to illegally alter the prices of “tens of thousands”[3] of publicly traded securities. Athena used complex computer programs that carried out advanced algorithms, trading in milliseconds. Gravy was used to move the price of Nasdaq stocks within the last ten minutes of trading, without any intent to invest in the actual stocks. This program was so…
On Friday, September 19, people from Beijing to New York could be seen celebrating the success of the Alibaba IPO. For months leading up to the offering, analysts and commentators had cautioned U.S. investors to be wary of the Chinese e-commerce giant. The skepticism was largely due to questions concerning the company’s corporate governance structure, known as a variable interest entity or “VIE”. The initial numbers and the subsequent celebrations, however, suggest that investors are not concerned. The stock (ticker symbol “BABA”) finished the trading day at $93.89, 38% above the initial set price of $68 and well above…