One of the most common defenses to a suitability claim is that the investor ratified the unsuitable transactions. Fortunately for investors in Texas, a broker cannot raise ratification as a defense to a claim under the Texas Securities Act or the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. As a consequence...   MORE>>

There has been quite a bit of change and confusion lately in the field of class arbitration. Until recently it was unclear whether the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) prohibited or allowed class arbitration. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court determined that the FAA allowed class arbitrati...   MORE>>

ABSTRACT

Pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act), self-regulatory organizations (SROs) receive quasi-governmental immunity. The justification for this immunity is twofold: first, to enforce the minimum financial and sales practice requirements created by Congress and the Se...   MORE>>

ABSTRACT

Private equity, characterized by firms operating as privately held partnerships organizing the acquisition and "taking private" of public companies, has recently dominated the business news due to deals unprecedented in number and size. If this buyout boom continues unabated, the 1989 pr...   MORE>>

ABSTRACT

One of the most dynamic and complex new investment vehicles on the market today is the exchange-traded fund (ETF), a security that provides the diversification of a mutual fund but trades on a securities exchange like a stock. In just fifteen years, the number of ETFs has proliferated to...   MORE>>

Class action arbitrations are a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States, but the number of such arbitrations is expanding at a rapid rate. As of August 2008, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) has administered 246 class action arbitrations and Judicial Arbitration and Mediati...   MORE>>

I. INTRODUCTION

On September 27, 2007, a packed Moot Court Room at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law welcomed two prominent JAMS mediators, Judge Daniel Weinstein (Ret.) and Michael Young, Esq., to a symposium on the mediation of securities class actions. Judge Weinstein and Mr. Young were jo...   MORE>>

“The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes[.]”[1]

“The Courts of no country execute the penal laws of another[.]”[2]

INTRODUCTION

It is easy to imagine the brilliant young CEO of Startup Co...   MORE>>

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has a soul of its own. The SEC has many human characteristics including the need for security, freedom, power, expansion, and expression.[1] As with people dedicated to serving others, the SEC faces the Herculean task of ignoring its own self-intere...   MORE>>

INTRODUCTION

In the wake of scandals involving Enron, Arthur Andersen and other corporations, Congress enacted the landmark Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act, more famously known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (hereinafter the “Act” or “Sarbanes-Oxley”).[1] Sarbanes-Oxley provide...   MORE>>