Consumers have three payment options when checking out in a store – cash, card, or mobile pay. Even without paying particular attention, the average consumer will notice that mobile pay is rapidly overtaking cash and card payments.[1] In 2021, around 101 million Americans—about 30 percent of the U.S. population—used mobile payment systems.[2] This was a massive 9.64 percent jump from 92 million Americans in 2020.[3] Though FinTech’s shift from physical to mobile payment systems provides consumers with more flexibility, this shift begs the question of how regulations (i.e., Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Bank Holding Company Act) will continue to…
Author: Patton Lu
It has been a decade since the SEC issued its first whistleblower award, which was an almost $50,000 payment to a nameless insider whose tips led to over a million dollars of sanctions.[1] Since then, the size and scope of the awards have grown with the program paying out more than a billion dollars to over 200 whistleblowers.[2] The program is broadly reveled as a great success, having rare bipartisan support and praise from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) chairs, prominent academics, and even whistleblowers themselves.[3] With a little over…
It became apparent that Musk had closed the deal to acquire Twitter after tweeting a video of himself walking into Twitter’s headquarters, carrying a physical sink in his arms.[1] He captioned the video “let that sink in,” which was likely a message to anyone who doubted Musk’s capacity to take charge of Twitter.[2] Because of his disagreement with Twitter executives over the company’s direction, one of his first moves was firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Degal, legal chief Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Adgett.[3] He fired all of them “for cause” in an attempt to avoid paying the…
On June 15, 2020, two Division I college athletes, Sedona Prince and Grant House, filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) and five Division I athletic conferences, alleging that the defendants engaged in anticompetitive practices and conspired to limit NCAA athletes’ opportunities for profit.[1] The plaintiffs alleged that the NCAA rules and conference rules fixed the amount that student athletes could be paid for use of their name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) to zero dollars and cut them out of the market entirely.[2] The NCAA did not allow any student athletes to profit off of their NIL…
“Oh hi lol.”[1] Despite its perceived innocence, this subtle tweet was the start of an ongoing conflict over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Inc. That same day, April 4, 2022, Musk, CEO of Tesla, Inc. and the world’s richest person, disclosed to the SEC that he had accumulated 9.2 percent of Twitter’s stock.[2] In response, Twitter enacted a shareholder rights plan, known as a “poison pill,” to stop Musk from a hostile takeover.[3] Despite Twitter’s maneuver—and perceived animosity between the two parties—Twitter announced ten days later that it had entered into a merger agreement (the “Agreement”) with Musk.[4] Musk would…
In 2021, Illumina, Inc. (“Illumina”), a global genetic testing company, acquired GRAIL LLC (“Grail”), a healthcare start-up that develops early cancer detection tests based on sequencing technologies.[1] Illumina formerly owned and has since retailed a minority interest in Grail.[2] With Illumina’s acquisition of Grail, however, the two companies would be reunited “at a critical time.”[3] Grail “needs Illumina’s scale and expertise to overcome significant hurdles to the widespread adoption of” its new multi-cancer early detection test.[4] However, because the $7 billion transaction involves the vertical integration of Illumina, antitrust authorities are concerned that it will result in a reduction of…
“[I]f you boycott Texas energy, then Texas will boycott you.”[1] In 2021, Texas enacted Senate Bill 13, a law that prohibits the state from doing business with financial institutions that the state deems are boycotting energy companies.[2] The law tasks the Texas Comptroller with keeping track of such financial companies.[3] In August of this year, Texas Comptroller, Glenn Hegar, announced a list of ten financial companies and almost 350 investment funds that are banned from doing business with the state of Texas.[4] The list includes BlackRock, BNP Paribas, UBS Group AG.[5] The law affects state pension funds and municipal bonds issued…
From political leaders to common voters, Americans agree that Big Tech has gotten too powerful.[1] The Trump administration, “in its waning days, filed two of the most important monopoly cases in history against Google and Facebook;”[2] cases the Biden administration has continued to prosecute.[3] Despite differences in justifications for curbing the power of Big Tech,[4] the majority of Americans believe that “Big Tech companies are too powerful and abuse their market power.”[5] Antitrust laws provide a solution to America’s dissatisfaction with Big Tech, but not as the law currently stands.[6] The House of Representatives has recently passed two bills highlighting…
What do Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a yacht named Graceful, and 0x12D66f87A04A9E220743712cE6d9bB1B5616B8Fc (the “Contract”) have in common? The short and likely only answer is that each is a target of sanctions programs administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). OFAC administers sanctions primarily to induce behavioral changes in the targeted party.[1] The financial incentives underlying OFAC’s sanctions (i.e., restricted access to the U.S. financial system) are well-equipped to address the behavior of traditional actors like foreign heads of state.[2] For example, Khamenei serves as the Supreme Leader of Iran and is responsible for facilitating international terrorism and destroying U.S.…
A few weeks ago, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by .75 points.[1] With this being the fifth increase this year, the Federal Reserve remains focused on fighting inflation, or at least attempting to curtail it.[2] Simply put, raising interest rates makes it harder to borrow, which reduces demand and, subsequently, inflation.[3] Because raising interest rates can lead to a recession, reducing inflation is carries risk.[4] But at the same time, too much inflation can also lead to a recession.[5] On a consumer level, raising interest rates lessens the demand for goods by raising the barrier of entry.[6] Without raising the…