Ascertaining which enforcement mechanisms work to protect investors has been both a focus of recent work in academic finance and an issue for policy-making at international development agencies. According to recent academic work, private enforcement of investor protection via both disclosure and private liability rules goes hand in hand with financial market development, but public enforcement fails to correlate with financial development and, hence, is unlikely to facilitate it. Our results confirm the disclosure result but reverse the results on both liability standards and public enforcement. We use securities regulators' resources to proxy for regulatory intensity of the securities regulator. When we do, financial depth regularly, significantly, and robustly correlates with stronger public enforcement. In horse races between these resource-based measures of public enforcement intensity and the most common measures of private enforcement, public enforcement is overall as important as disclosure in explaining financial market outcomes around the world and more important than private liability rules. Hence, policymakers who reject public enforcement as useful for financial market development are ignoring the best currently-available evidence.
This book assembles the world's most authoritative specialists for a comparative analysis of the enforcement of corporate and securities laws in thirteen national jurisdictions. It examines the enforcement of corporate and securities laws across the globe and across different legal and political systems from an in-depth comparative perspective.
"This book undertakes unique case studies, including interviews with participants, as well as empirical analysis, of public and private enforcement of Australian securities laws addressing continuous disclosure. Enforcement of laws is crucial to effective regulation. Historically, enforcement was the province of a government regulator with significant discretion (public enforcement). However, more and more citizens are being expected to take action themselves (private enforcement). Consistent with regulatory pluralism, public and private enforcement exist in parallel, with the capacity to both help and hinder each other, and the achievement of the goals of enforcement in a range of areas of regulation. The rise of the shareholder class action in Australia, backed by litigation funding or lawyers, has given rise to enforcement overlapping with that of the government regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The ramifications of overlapping enforcement are explained based on detailed analysis. The analysis is further bolstered by the regulator's approach to enforcement changing from a compliance orientation to a "Why not litigate?" approach. The analysis and ramifications of the Australian case studies involve matters of regulatory theory and practice that apply across jurisdictions. The book will appeal to practitioners, regulators and academics interested in regulatory policy and enforcement, and the operation of regulators and class actions, including their interaction."--
This book takes a law and economic approach to examine the securities law enforcement in China and provides an in-depth empirical analysis on the enforcement inputs and outputs. In contrast to previous studies, it systematically collects a large sample of judicated securities fraud cases and public sanctions as disclosed by the listed companies. The enforcement regime is further divided into the private enforcement exemplified by the civil litigation imitated by harmed investors and public enforcement by sanctions proceedings initiated by public agencies. Academic researchers, policy makers and practitioners, who are interested in the securities market and regulation could find the information provided in this book interesting.
This book undertakes unique case studies, including interviews with participants, as well as empirical analysis, of public and private enforcement of Australian securities laws addressing continuous disclosure. Enforcement of laws is crucial to effective regulation. Historically, enforcement was the province of a government regulator with significant discretion (public enforcement). However, more and more citizens are being expected to take action themselves (private enforcement). Consistent with regulatory pluralism, public and private enforcement exist in parallel, with the capacity to both help and hinder each other, and the achievement of the goals of enforcement in a range of areas of regulation. The rise of the shareholder class action in Australia, backed by litigation funding or lawyers, has given rise to enforcement overlapping with that of the government regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The ramifications of overlapping enforcement are explained based on detailed analysis. The analysis is further bolstered by the regulator's approach to enforcement changing from a compliance orientation to a “Why not litigate?” approach. The analysis and ramifications of the Australian case studies involve matters of regulatory theory and practice that apply across jurisdictions. The book will appeal to practitioners, regulators and academics interested in regulatory policy and enforcement, and the operation of regulators and class actions, including their interaction.
Global Securities Litigation and Enforcement provides a clear and exhaustive description of the national regime for the enforcement of securities legislation in cases of misrepresentation on financial markets. It covers 29 jurisdictions worldwide, some of them are important although their law is not well known. It will be an invaluable resource for academics and students of securities litigation, as well as for lawyers, policy-makers and regulators. The book also provides a comprehensive contribution debate on whether public or private enforcement is preferable in terms of development of securities markets. It will appeal to those interested in the legal origins theory and in comparative securities law, and shows that the classification of jurisdictions within legal families does not explain the differences in legal regimes. While US securities law often serves as a model for international convergence, some of its elements, such as securities class actions, have not been adopted worldwide.
My research conducts a broad, empirical study of the overlapping public and private mechanisms that enforce federal securities laws. I use two original datasets to provide a descriptive analysis of federal enforcement actions, initiated by the Securities Exchange Commission, and private class actions, filed on behalf of aggrieved investors, between 1998 and 2004. My study also examines how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has perturbed the balance of joint litigation of securities suits, and discusses the role of public and private litigation in disciplining self regulatory organizations, in particular the national stock exchanges, since 1990. A final contribution of this study is an analysis of the corporate governance reforms that both public and private litigators have required defendant firms to adopt, as part of their settlement agreements, together with an analysis of the market reaction to these reforms.
Current scholarship emphasises the correlation between enforcement of corporate and securities laws and strong capital markets. Yet, the issue of how private and public enforcement may achieve the objectives of compensation and optimal deterrence remains controversial. While enforcement strategies have been studied extensively in the US and the UK, comparatively less attention is placed on Asia where concentrated shareholdings are the norm. This study fills the gap by focusing on Hong Kong and Singapore, two leading international financial centres in Asia. Post-Asian financial crisis of 1997, Hong Kong and Singapore have changed their laws to strengthen the private enforcement framework. Public enforcement activities have also been significant. The question is whether these reforms and enforcement activities succeed in reaching the afore-mentioned objectives. Based on our study of breaches of directorial duties and corporate disclosure violations involving listed companies from 2000 to 2015, we find that (1) public enforcement dominates over private enforcement; and (2) there exist important, but limited, substitutes to private enforcement: securities regulators use public enforcement to obtain compensation for investors and shareholders file requisitions to remove the errant directors. We argue that: (a) there is a significant gap in enforcement strategies for directorial wrongdoing in Singapore; (b) for public enforcement of corporate disclosure violations, the beneficiaries of the compensation should be the investors (rather than the company) and the defendants should only be the errant directors (and not the company). Our study is relevant to those jurisdictions considering the powers of regulators and improving their enforcement framework.
Informal and student-friendly, this best-selling study guide—also used by Wall Street lawyers and SEC staffers as a reference book—gives an overview of federal securities regulation and illustrates the topic with practical applications. Examples & Explanations: Securities Regulation, Eighth Edition combines clear introductions with examples and explanations that allow students to test their understanding of concepts and practice applying the law to fact patterns—many drawn from actual events in the securities markets. New to the Eighth Edition: Updates on U.S. capital formation in public and private securities markets, with a focus on trends in IPOs, going-private transactions, and private placements New materials on the treatment of “autonomous business” forms and crypto-currencies (including gaming tokens) under the federal securities law Trends in the use of Reg D, Reg A+, and Reg CF over the past several years, given recent amendments to these registration exemptions under the Securities Act of 1933 The timeliness of Section 11 suits under the Securities Act of 1933, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in CALPERS v. ANZ Securities, Inc. (2017) The preemption of state court class actions under the Securities Act of 1933 and the right of defendants to remove such actions to federal court, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund (2018) The securities-fraud liability of a securities rep, who disseminated false information provided to him by a superior, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Lorenzo v. SEC (2019) Lower court application of the “personal benefit” analysis in Salman v. United States (2016) to quid pro quo tips of inside information to family and friends Updates on judicial and SEC enforcement of the federal securities laws—in particular, the use of disgorgement and civil penalties in the sale of nonexempt, unregistered securities The timeliness of disgorgement sanctions in SEC enforcement actions, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Kokesh v. SEC (2017) The proper appointment of SEC administrative law judges and their authority to impose sanctions in SEC administrative enforcement actions, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Lucia v. SEC (2018) The availability of Dodd-Frank whistleblower protection to a company executive who reported a possible securities violation within his company but not to the SEC, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers (2018) The requirement of individualized showings of “domestic transactions” in a securities fraud class action brought against a foreign company whose securities traded on U.S. and foreign markets Professors and students will benefit from: A study guide that introduces students to the subject’s clubbish vocabulary, identifies its important principles, and reveals its layered structure. Chapters in which, after sketching the key concepts of U.S. securities regulation, give students a chance to compare their responses to concrete examples with the book’s detailed explanations. The text includes new and updated charts on: Shareholdings in the US securities markets Capital formation through public and private offerings Actual use of the various registration exemptions The updated examples and explanations include new questions on: “Autonomous business” forms and crypto-currencies Section 11 class actions brought in state court Fraudulent statements “made” by securities professionals Insider trading tips to friends and family Availability of disgorgement sanctions in SEC enforcement actions
