New England Biz Law Update

I find it rare when an important legal issue remains unresolved after 30 years. Regulation of the so-called “finder” is such an issue. It now is refocused following an April meeting between an American Bar Association task force and the ...

Tagged with: Aug. 31 2012 issue

I find it rare when an important legal issue remains unresolved after 30 years. Regulation of the so-called “finder” is such an issue. It now is refocused following an April meeting between an American Bar Association task force and the ...

Tagged with: Aug. 31 2012 issue

“I have no conviction. … I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind is blowing from Vichy.” When Louis told Rick that he was at the mercy of Casablanca’s prevailing winds, he surely was not thinking about the Securities ...

Tagged with: June 30 2012 issue

“You tell me what you know and I’ll confirm. I’ll keep you in the right direction if I can. … Just … follow the money.” — Deep Throat, “All the President’s Men” In the depth of the Watergate scandal, the ...

Tagged with: May 31 2012 issue

The president has signed a bill, overwhelmingly adopted by Congress, awkwardly entitled Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups Act (which, in case you have been living on Mars and have missed it, bears the unfortunate acronym JOBS Act). According to many economists, ...

Tagged with: April 30 2012 issue

You wouldn’t expect securities regulation to be driven by gender-based violence in the middle of Africa — but it is. While compliance officers have been diving deep into Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, most corporate lawyers have avoided it ...

Tagged with: March 31 2012 issue

As we approach the proxy season, the SEC landscape has changed significantly. We have one year of “say-on-pay” under our belts; private ordering of shareholder proxy nominations (see my January column); and a flurry of SEC guidance, including compensation, risk, ...

Tagged with: Feb. 29 2012 issue

The huge scope of the Dodd-Frank Act poses an enormous problem for the Securities and Exchange Commission: How, in the midst of everything else, can the SEC perform the various functions assigned to it by Congress?

Tagged with: Jan. 30 2012 issue

“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” — Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not” Humphrey Bogart might have known how to whistle, at least at Lauren Bacall, but the ...

Tagged with: Nov. 30 2011 issue

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano held that a company could be liable for a material misstatement that might have affected the “total mix” of information in the marketplace, even when that misstatement lacked ...

Tagged with: July 2011 issue