It comes as something ofa surprise to reflect that the New York Review ofBooks is now over twenty years old. Even people of my generation (that is, old enough to remember the revolutionary 196os but not young enough to have taken a very exciting part in them) think of the paper as eternally youthful. In fact, it has gone through years of relatively quiet life, yet, as always in a competitive journalistic market, it is the controversies that attract the interest of the reader and to which the history (especially an admittedly impressionistic survey that tries to include something of the intellectual context in which a journal has operated) must give some attention. Not all the attacks which the New York Review has attracted, both early in its career and more recently, are worth more than a brief summary. What do we now make, for example, of Richard Kostelanetz's forthright accusation that 'The New York Review was from its origins destined to publicize Random House's (and especially [Jason] Epstein's) books and writers'?1 Well, simply that, even if the statistics bear out the charge (and Kostelanetz provides some suggestive evidence to support it, at least with respect to some early issues), there is nothing surprising in a market economy about a publisher trying to push his books through the pages of a journal edited by his friends. True, the New York Review has not had room to review more than around fifteen books in each issue and there could be a bias in the selection of

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3507774.pdf

The New York Review of Books

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review 17 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Boston College Law Review 50 B.C. L. Rev., No. 3, May, 2009. Boston University Public Interest Law Journal 18 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 10 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Cardozo Public Law, Policy, & Ethics Journal 7 Cardozo Pub. L. Pol’y & Ethics J., No. 3, Summer, 2009. Chicago Journal of International Law 10 Chi. J. Int’l L., No. 1, Summer, 2009. Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 20 Colo. J. Int’l Envtl. L. & Pol’y, No. 2, Winter, 2009. Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 32 Colum. J.L. & Arts, No. 3, Spring, 2009. Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal 8 Conn. Pub. Int. L.J., No. 2, Spring-Summer, 2009. Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 18 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Pol’y, No. 1, Fall, 2008. Cornell Law Review 94 Cornell L. Rev., No. 5, July, 2009. Creighton Law Review 42 Creighton L. Rev., No. 3, April, 2009. Criminal Law Forum 20 Crim. L. Forum, Nos. 2-3, Pp. 173-394, 2009. Delaware Journal of Corporate Law 34 Del. J. Corp. L., No. 2, Pp. 433-754, 2009. Environmental Law Reporter News & Analysis 39 Envtl. L. Rep. News & Analysis, No. 7, July, 2009. European Journal of International Law 20 Eur. J. Int’l L., No. 2, April, 2009. Family Law Quarterly 43 Fam. L.Q., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Georgetown Journal of International Law 40 Geo. J. Int’l L., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 22 Geo. J. Legal Ethics, No. 2, Spring, 2009. Golden Gate University Law Review 39 Golden Gate U. L. Rev., No. 2, Winter, 2009. Harvard Environmental Law Review 33 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 297-608, 2009. International Review of Law and Economics 29 Int’l Rev. L. & Econ., No. 1, March, 2009. Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation 24 J. Envtl. L. & Litig., No. 1, Pp. 1-201, 2009. Journal of Legislation 34 J. Legis., No. 1, Pp. 1-98, 2008. Journal of Technology Law & Policy 14 J. Tech. L. & Pol’y, No. 1, June, 2009. Labor Lawyer 24 Lab. Law., No. 3, Winter/Spring, 2009. Michigan Journal of International Law 30 Mich. J. Int’l L., No. 3, Spring, 2009. New Criminal Law Review 12 New Crim. L. Rev., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Northern Kentucky Law Review 36 N. Ky. L. Rev., No. 4, Pp. 445-654, 2009. Ohio Northern University Law Review 35 Ohio N.U. L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 445-886, 2009. Pace Law Review 29 Pace L. Rev., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Quinnipiac Health Law Journal 12 Quinnipiac Health L.J., No. 2, Pp. 209-332, 2008-2009. Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal 44 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L.J., No. 1, Spring, 2009. Rutgers Race and the Law Review 10 Rutgers Race & L. Rev., No. 2, Pp. 441-629, 2009. San Diego Law Review 46 San Diego L. Rev., No. 2, Spring, 2009. Seton Hall Law Review 39 Seton Hall L. Rev., No. 3, Pp. 725-1102, 2009. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 18 S. Cal. Interdisc. L.J., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Stanford Environmental Law Journal 28 Stan. Envtl. L.J., No. 3, July, 2009. Tulsa Law Review 44 Tulsa L. Rev., No. 2, Winter, 2008. UMKC Law Review 77 UMKC L. Rev., No. 4, Summer, 2009. Washburn Law Journal 48 Washburn L.J., No. 3, Spring, 2009. Washington University Global Studies Law Review 8 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev., No. 3, Pp.451-617, 2009. Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 29 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y, Pp. 1-401, 2009. Washington University Law Review 86 Wash. U. L. Rev., No. 6, Pp. 1273-1521, 2009. William Mitchell Law Review 35 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev., No. 4, Pp. 1235-1609, 2009. Yale Journal of International Law 34 Yale J. Int’l L., No. 2, Summer, 2009. Yale Journal on Regulation 26 Yale J. on Reg., No. 2, Summer, 2009.

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Current index to legal periodicals

What external control mechanisms are most effective in detecting corporate fraud? To address this question we study in depth all reported cases of corporate fraud in companies with more than 750 million dollars in assets between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on one single mechanism, but on a wide range of, often improbable, actors. Only 6% of the frauds are revealed by the SEC and 14% by the auditors. More important monitors are media (14%), industry regulators (16%), and employees (19%). Before SOX, only 35% of the cases were discovered by actors with an explicit mandate. After SOX, the performance of mandated actors improved, but still account for only slightly more than 50% of the cases. We find that monetary incentives for detection in frauds against the government influence detection without increasing frivolous suits, suggesting gains from extending such incentives to corporate fraud more generally.

/pdf/who-blows-the-whistle-on-corporate-fraud-1nt12xu1oq.pdf

Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud

We survey institutional investors to better understand their role in the corporate governance of firms. Consistent with a number of theories, we document widespread behind-the-scenes intervention as well as governance-motivated exit. These governance mechanisms are viewed as complementary devices, with intervention typically occurring prior to a potential exit. We further find that long-term investors and investors that are less concerned about stock liquidity intervene more intensively. Finally, we find that most investors use proxy advisors and believe that the information provided by such advisors improves their own voting decisions.

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Behind the scenes: the corporate governance preferences of institutional investors

/pdf/who-blows-the-whistle-on-corporate-fraud-55n3uy7xb4.pdf

Examining a sample of 701 offshore securities offerings under Regulation S of the Securities Act from 1993 to 1997, the article tests whether foreign investors expect to resell Regulation S securities into the United States ahead of the U.S. secondary market reaction to news of the offering. The article provides evidence from an event study that the secondary market reaction to a Regulation S offering is negative and statistically significant. Foreign investors able to resell into the United States ahead of the secondary market reaction, therefore, may act as conduits for issuers attempting to sell overvalued securities into the United States to the detriment of U.S. investors. To the extent managers seek to benefit pre-offering shareholders, they will negotiate to give foreign investors as small an offering discount as possible. In contrast, where foreign investors are unable to resell prior to the secondary market negative reaction to news of the offering, foreign investors will demand a greater discount in compensation for the entire expected market reaction. Without such a discount, Regulation S offerings result in a transfer in value from foreign investors to U.S. investors; rational foreign investors will choose not to participate in such offerings. Controlling for other factors that may affect the offering discount, the article furnishes evidence on the offering discount consistent with the hypothesis that foreign investors were in fact unable to engage in resales ahead of the U.S. secondary market reaction to a Regulation S offering.

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The Informational Effect of an Offshore Securities Offering: Evaluating the Risk to U.S. Investors

This article studies the impact of exogenous legal change on whether and how lawyers across four different deal types revise their contracts’ governing law clauses in order to solve the problem that the legal change created. The governing law clause is present in practically every contract across a wide range of industries and, in particular, it appears in deals as disparate as private equity M&A transactions and sovereign bond issuances. Properly drafted, the clause increases the ex ante economic value of the contract to both parties by reducing uncertainty and litigation risk. We posit that different levels of agency costs are the motivating factors that influence beneficial innovations in governing law clauses as well as their mirror opposite, costly encrustations. Our data show that lawyers who draft private equity M&A deals pay more attention to the deal terms than lawyers producing corporate and sovereign bond contracts. Because agency costs are low in the private equity setting, we observe significantly more innovation in private equity deals as compared to sovereign and corporate bond transactions where the agency problems of drafting lawyers are much greater. More surprising, we also find that contracts drafted by private equity M&A lawyers have more obsolete and encrusted terms than the contracts of the other deal types. Our conjecture is that the lawyers' dominant drafting strategy is to find examples of a desired term in other documents and import that language verbatim into the contract together with other redundant and obsolete terms including, on occasion, terms that may harm the clients' interests if retained in the contract.

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Innovation Versus Encrustation: Agency Costs in Contract Reproduction

/pdf/anticipating-venezuela-s-debt-crisis-hidden-holdouts-and-the-30eiips8dq.pdf

Anticipating Venezuela’s Debt Crisis: Hidden Holdouts and the Problem of Pricing Collective Action Clauses

This essay examines several metrics of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decisionmaking that may be updated on a regular basis over time using publicly available data to give a picture of how SEC decisionmaking changes over time. I focus on SEC actions against public companies and subsidiaries of public companies and use data from the 2005 to 2018 period. The metrics include: the number of SEC actions per year and per month, the ratio of SEC actions to securities class actions by year, the mean abnormal return from an event study of the first public announcement of the problem that led to the eventual SEC enforcement action by year, the fraction of SEC actions with prior disclosure of the underlying violation by year, and the variability of the market response to the initiation of a SEC action by year. The metrics cannot demonstrate with certainty what motivates internal SEC enforcement decisions but may raise questions that guide future research.

/pdf/measuring-the-impact-of-sec-enforcement-decisions-40xhdpwmkq.pdf

Measuring the Impact of SEC Enforcement Decisions

This paper examines the factors that affect the decision of U.S. companies to issue securities off-shore compared with inside the United States. Utilizing a data set of 1,444 domestic private placements and offshore offerings from 1993 to 1997, the paper reports that firms that experienced a private securities fraud lawsuit in the past resort to foreign sources of capital more frequently. Similarly, companies in standard industrial classification groups that are targeted more often with private securities fraud litigation are also more likely to issue securities offshore than to conduct domestic private placements. Not all issuers, however, choose to exit the U.S. regime. The paper employs past experience with a SEC investigation as a proxy for the amount of risk that the issuer may pose to investors. Issuers with private securities fraud litigation experience that also encountered a past SEC investigation are more likely to raise capital through a domestic offering, consistent with the hypothesis that some issuers choose to raise capital in the United States when the bonding and signaling value of the U.S. legal liability regime outweighs the costs associated with antifraud liability.

Stephen J. Choi

Papers

The Informational Effect of an Offshore Securities Offering: Evaluating the Risk to U.S. Investors

Innovation Versus Encrustation: Agency Costs in Contract Reproduction

Anticipating Venezuela’s Debt Crisis: Hidden Holdouts and the Problem of Pricing Collective Action Clauses

Measuring the Impact of SEC Enforcement Decisions

Assessing the Cost of Regulatory Protection: Evidence on the Decision to Sell Securities Outside the United States