Author: Christopher Halm

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Download a copy here.

Download a copy here.

Please join us in congratulating the newly elected Vol. XXVIII Editorial Board for 2022-23! Below is the Journal’s masthead for the upcoming academic year:

Friday, February 4th, marked Chairman Jelena McWilliams’ final day as head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Although her term, which began June 2018, was not scheduled to end until June 2023, McWilliams officially resigned prematurely at the end of 2021.[1] She will be replaced by interim Chairman Martin Gruenberg, who was the previous Chairman of the FDIC from 2012-2018 (appointed by Barack Obama) and who remained on the board after his leadership role ended.[2] Gruenberg will remain the interim director until Joe Biden nominates a replacement who is approved by the Senate.[3] The FDIC was created by President…

As President Biden attempts to fill seats in the Federal Reserve Bank’s (Fed) Board of Governors, the Fed is also aiming to restore confidence that its officials are fully committed to serving the public after several reports indicated that some branch presidents and the former Vice Chair actively traded in 2020.[1] These reports led to questions about the possibility of self-dealing at the Fed and whether these high-ranking officials took advantage of insider information.[2] Following the release of these reports, the Fed has worked to restore public trust by ordering a full review of these trades to ensure that they…

The pandemic’s catastrophic impact on international trade and investment in a brief span of time is a testament of how unpredictable factors can tilt world markets. The post-Covid era has introduced companies and investors to a new dimension of corporate assessment, the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factor.[1] As companies are becoming increasingly concerned with the impact they leave on the environment and society, ESG is no longer viewed solely from the perspective of climate change and carbon reduction. Further, with companies looking forward to capturing markets in this new race for power, the need for a holistic approach is more…

Executive Summary Artificial Intelligence (“AI”)[1] has moved rapidly in the last decade; so has the debate around its potential implications.[2] Today, AI is part of our daily life ­– from getting renter’s insurance[3] to using the fast lane while going through TSA.[4] Despite AI’s prevalence, the federal government’s involvement has been limited in addressing the most significant issues around AI. This may be changing soon. Current Framework in the US AI has gained the attention of Congress[5] and the White House,[6] but no comprehensive federal regulation currently exists.[7] The Trump administration issued the first AI regulatory guidance in 2019,[8] encouraging…

“Financial censorship” is not a term with which most people are familiar. Indeed, the idea that people could be financially censored is a relatively modern one—one’s cash is just as good as another’s. The advent of credit cards has changed that assumption significantly, and to operate a business in the present day, it is a necessity that one must be able to process credit cards.[1] But while the forms of financial censorship are new, the concept is not, in principle, terribly distinct from blacklisting or other forms of boycott or conspiracy outlawed—perhaps ineffectually—by the Sherman Act. Today’s financial censorship may…

On June 5, 2020, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced that the country would be adopting Bitcoin as legal currency.[1] Days later, in order to move ahead of any organized opposition,[2] El Salvador’s legislature passed the bill that made Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador in addition to the U.S. Dollar.[3] This was only the latest of a series of actions President Nayib Bukele had taken regarding Bitcoin that captured the attention of the world’s major financial institutions.[4] In the aftermath of this hastily passed bill, there has been international fallout from the IMF and World Bank regarding the financial…