- What’s actually in the new House-passed bill revamping Dodd-Frank? And what’s likely to happen to it in the Senate? [David Henderson, EconLib; Benjamin Parker, Weekly Standard; Stephen Bainbridge]
- Supreme Court, 9-0, rebuffs SEC: yes, disgorgement is a penalty and statute of limitations applies to it [Theresa Gabaldon/SCOTUSBlog (statutes of limitations “vital to the welfare of society,” per Sotomayor), Bainbridge and more, Thaya Brook Knight and Ilya Shapiro/Cato]
- Allan Meltzer, R.I.P. [James Dorn, Gerald O’Driscoll, Ian Vásquez, Cato]
- “The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the New Trump Administration: Your Top Ten Questions Answered” [Foley & Lardner]
- June 15, mark your calendar: “Financial Crisis and Reform: Have We Done Enough to Fix the Government-Sponsored Entities?” with John Allison, Susan Wharton Gates, R. Christopher Whalen, Landon Parsons, and Ike Brannon, Cato event streaming live or in person in Washington, D.C.;
- Why, yes: “Is It Time to Repeal FATCA?” [Veronique de Rugy, more]
Posts Tagged ‘Securities and Exchange Commission’
Supreme Court and constitutional law roundup
All-Cato edition:
- SEC’s use of in-house judges violates constitutional principle of independent judiciary [Thaya Brook Knight, Ilya Shapiro, Devin Watkins, and Ari Blask]
- Have you checked out the annual Cato Supreme Court Review on the 2015-16 term, available both in-print and free online? Among the contents: Roger Pilon on Scalia’s originalism; Andrew Trask on the class action case of Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo (and more); Steven Calabresi on originalism and liberty; Steven Eagle on wetlands law; Harvey Silverglate and Emma Quinn-Judge on McDonnell and honest-services-fraud prosecutions of state and local officials; and Glenn Reynolds looking ahead to this (2016-17) term;
- Federal agency can’t unilaterally rewrite unambiguous statutory provision [Ilya Shapiro and Frank Garrison on Cato certiorari amicus in FLSA tip-pooling case of National Restaurant Association v. Department of Labor]
- “You Shouldn’t Be Criminally Liable If You Don’t Have a Guilty Mind” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato certiorari brief in mens rea case of Farha v. U.S.; related on mens rea, Orrin Hatch, Time]
- Court must resolve constitutionality of CFPB structure, especially now that DoJ itself agrees it’s unconstitutional [Thaya Brook Knight and Ilya Shapiro, more]
- In ineffective-assistance-of-counsel case that might hinge on whether drug defendant was bound to be convicted anyway, Court should not sidestep the historically significant phenomenon of jury nullification [Cato podcast with Tim Lynch on Lee v. U.S.; more on case from Amy Howe at SCOTUSBlog on oral argument and from Lynch at The Hill]
Good riddance (if they’re indeed going) to the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rules
President Trump is said to be considering an executive order suspending for a time the Dodd-Frank law’s provisions on conflict minerals, which have harmed American companies and consumers and also plunged many communities further into impoverishment in some of the poorest sections of Africa. Congress should rise to its part by repealing the provisions, I argue at Cato at Liberty. More: Hans Bader/CEI, Kevin Drum/Mother Jones, earlier, and as part of a wider look at securities regulation, Wallace DeWitt/National Affairs. More: Dominic P. Parker and Bryan Vadheim, JAERE; Tate Watkins, WSJ.
Banking and finance roundup
- SEC in-house administrative law judges are unconstitutional, rules 10th Circuit, creating circuit split [ABA Journal, Jonathan Adler]
- “Dear Sen. Warren: If we care to share our policy views, we’ll let you know. Otherwise MYOB. Signed – 33 firms” [Elizabeth Warren letter demanding to know what financial firms think of delay in Labor Department fiduciary rule, coverage WSJ/MarketWatch]
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s grab for more regulatory power over financial institutions would erode due process protections [New York Post quoting Mark Calabria]
- “Supreme Court Probes Whether Miami Can Sue Banks Over Foreclosure Crisis” [Daniel Fisher, earlier on Bank of America v. Miami here, etc.] Arnold Kling’s prescriptions for getting the government out of the mortgage market;
- Mini-symposium on the personal benefit standard for insider trading in the recent Supreme Court case of Salman v. U.S. [Bainbridge]
- India’s devastating crackdown on cash [Cato Daily Podcast with Jim Dorn and Caleb Brown]
To head SEC, Trump picks a FCPA critic
Jay Clayton of Sullivan & Cromwell, president-elect Donald Trump’s choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, has not taken a high-profile role in policy debates but according to MarketWatch was involved in preparing a 2011 report for the New York City Bar critical of enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). That’s a point in his favor, I argue at Cato, since the case against zealous FCPA enforcement is well established. Related earlier, and Texas Public Policy Foundation 2014. More: Andrew Ramonas, BNA Bloomberg.
Sorry, your cellphone game violates Dodd-Frank
The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled an enforcement action against Forcerank, LLC, a provider of a mobile phone game that enables players to engage in fantasy stock trading for a small charge, much of which was refunded to players in the form of prizes for successful predictions. The SEC takes the position that the transactions involved, however small, fall into the class of swaps and derivatives that, under Dodd-Frank, cannot be offered to the public except under intensively regulated conditions. [Stephen Quinlivan]
Banking and finance roundup
- Trying to pressure banks to cease tax refund anticipation lending, FDIC staff crossed several lines of impropriety [inspector general executive summary via Kevin Funnell]
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, class action lawyers’ best friend, aims to suppress arbitration [WSJ, The Hill, earlier here, here, here]
- When CEOs campaign for their view of social justice, do they disserve shareholders’ interest? To the point of incurring liability? [Kevin LaCroix]
- “Insider Trading: The Unknowable Crime” [Thaya Brook Knight and Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Salman v. U.S.]
- “The Number of Publicly Traded Firms Has Halved” [Alex Tabarrok; Naomi LaChance, Inside Sources, on decline of IPOs] Does SEC Chairman Mary Jo White get it? [Hodak Value]
- Tax havens and tax competition serve vital policy function, to “curtail the greed of the political class” [Dan Mitchell] Related: “The War Against Cash, Part III”
“Administrative Law Judges Are Unconstitutional”
Administrative law judges are executive-branch as distinct from judicial officers, yet the President has no power to remove them; at the Securities and Exchange Commission and many other federal agencies, they are themselves employed by the agency on whose enforcement cases they must render quasi-judicial rulings. In recent years federal judges have expressed unease about whether assigning ALJs this particular combination of adjudicatory powers and institutional affiliations is entirely consistent with the U.S. Constitution, and now a Cato Institute amicus brief, in the D.C. Circuit case of Timbervest LLC v. Securities and Exchange Commission, urges courts to take the next logical step and rule that it is not. [Ilya Shapiro and Thaya Brook Knight; earlier here, here, here here, etc.]
Banking and finance roundup
- To keep your sex business free from the coils of federal regulation, your best bet might in fact be Ted Cruz, implacable opponent of Operation Choke Point [Elizabeth Nolan Brown; more from Snopes on rather silly attacks on Cruz for doing job lawyers are expected to do for clients in Texas case]
- Snoopy, you’re not systematically important: judge frees MetLife from SIFI designation under Dodd-Frank [Thaya Brook Knight/Cato, John Cochrane]
- What with Sen. Elizabeth Warren trying to put a lid on some companies’ criticism of the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule, hope it’s still OK for the rest of us to talk about it [Thaya Brook Knight, Cato]
- Sen. Warren isn’t only one using letters to SEC to browbeat businesses: New York City elected Public Advocate Letitia (“Tish”) James tries to hassle gunmaker Sturm Ruger to comply with various demands of gun control advocates [Manikandan Raman, Benzinga/Yahoo; more on Ms. James and her blames]
- Next term Supreme Court will consider case on scope of insider trading law, Salman v. U.S. [Ira Stoll, more] “Returning to Common-Law Principles of Insider Trading After United States v. Newman” [Richard Epstein, Yale Law Journal on Second Circuit’s decision via Stoll]
- DoJ cracks down on big-investor activism — at least when of a sort antitrust enforcers don’t like [Matt Levine]
A hold-up of SEC nominees
You mean getting to a floor vote so that sensitive vacancies can be filled isn’t these senators’ top priority after all? Sen. Chuck Schumer and allies are holding up two presidential nominations to the Securities and Exchange Commission, those of Democrat Lisa Fairfax and Republican Hester Peirce, demanding that the nominees commit to supporting a scheme to force shareholder-held companies to disclose their political involvements, the better for adversaries to pressure them or retaliate. It flies in the face of the idea that the appropriate frame of mind for commissioners approaching the rulemaking process is to keep an open mind rather than promise to vote one way or the other [Stephen Bainbridge, Broc Romanek/Corporate Counsel, Marc Hodak] “The SEC is now down to just three members, two less than its full complement, after two left the agency late last year. If the SEC remains with only three members for a prolonged period, it could be difficult for Chairman Mary Jo White to advance her agenda in what is likely her final year at the markets regulator.” [Andrew Ackerman, WSJ] More: WSJ letters via Prof. Bainbridge; Washington Post editorial.