Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

Whither Antitrust Enforcement in the Trump Administration

Abstract: The Trump Administration might follow Donald Trump’s populist campaign rhetoric and adopt an approach to antitrust enforcement that emphasizes reining in corporate power. This approach would honor the preferences of the working-class voters who have put Trump into office by vigorously enforcing the antitrust laws controlling mergers and exclusionary conduct by dominant firms. Alternatively, the Trump Administration might adopt a highly permissive, laissez-faire approach to antitrust. That approach would allow further consolidation of corporate power and would disappoint the substantial majority of Americans who believe that the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful. We discuss these alternative approaches and offer a number of suggestions for how the Trump Administration can use antitrust enforcement and competition policy to rein in corporate power while respecting antitrust precedent and staying true to modern antitrust principles.

Testimony of Urska Velikonja Before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets on Proposals to Strengthen Enforcement Against Securities Law Violators

Abstract: The Committee is considering two different kinds of legislative proposals. The first kind are improvements to the existing regime: rewarding PCAOB whistleblowers to encourage early reporting, improving the process for granting waivers from bad actor disqualifications, and increasing the civil fines that the SEC can impose. The second kind of legislative proposals codify an existing practice in SEC enforcement, now decades-old, such as disgorgement in civil actions. These practices are threatened by recent Supreme Court decisions in Kokesh v. SEC, 137 S. Ct. 1635 (2017) and Gabelli v. SEC, 133 S Ct. 1216 (2013). These cases threaten not only SEC disgorgement but also similar remedies sought by the SEC and its sister enforcement agencies. Failure to act and adopt the proposed amendments does not preserve the status quo. Rather, inaction would significantly hamper SEC enforcement since lower courts applying these new decisions are blocking long-standing agency practices. The testimony is divided in three parts. In Part I, I discuss the Discussion Drafts that propose increasing civil fines and codifying equitable relief in civil actions. In Part II, I supply empirical evidence on the impact of short limitations periods on SEC enforcement, and suggest that an increase in the limitations period is necessary. Finally, in Part III, I provide data on SEC’s bad actor disqualification and waiver practices. Specifically, my comments suggest that the proposed amendments are necessary to bring transparency and accountability to the waiver process.

Doing Too Much: The Standard Deduction and the Conflict Between Progressivity and Simplification

Abstract: In U.S. federal income tax, the standard deduction, along with the personal exemptions, provides taxpayers with a minimum amount of untaxed income, effectively creating a ―zero bracket amount.‖ For historical and political reasons, however, the standard deduction also operates as a simplified substitute for the itemized deductions, such as the deductions for extraordinary medical expenses, charitable contributions, and home mortgage interest. This seemingly reasonable compromise in fact leads to substantial, and surprising, conceptual complexity. In particular, close analysis of each of the two roles shows that their effects, and related criticisms, are often contradictory, which in turn makes it difficult, if not impossible, to have coherent policy debates regarding the proper roles of the standard deduction and the personal deductions. This flawed compromise between progressivity and simplification is not necessary. We can replace the standard deduction with a true, independent zero bracket amount and a floor under the itemized deductions while staying revenueand distribution-neutral. This would effectively divorce the two roles of the standard deduction—zero bracket amount and simplification of the itemized deductions—leading to more coherence in individual income taxation and giving more flexibility to policymakers. This article proposes further to disaggregate the single floor under the itemized deductions into multiple, independent floors under each itemized deduction. This also would lead to greater coherence and flexibility in tax system design. While creating multiple floors would marginally increase complexity for some taxpayers, the costs of such complexity are justified in light of the benefits of more accuracy and coherence.  Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. J.D., Harvard Law School, 2006; A.B., Harvard College, 1998. I am grateful for helpful comments and suggestions from Jennifer BirdPollan, Joshua Blank, Lilian Faulhaber, Victor Fleischer, Daniel Halperin, Louis Kaplow, and Alvin Warren, and also to participants in workshops at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Syracuse University College of Law, University of Washington School of Law, Tulane University Law School, Seton Hall Law School, Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Louisiana State University Law Center, and the Law & Society 2010 Conference. 204 COLUMBIA JOURNAL OF TAX LAW [Vol.2:203

Duty and Diversity

Abstract: In the wake of the brutal deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a slew of reforms from Wall Street to the West Coast have been introduced, all aimed at increasing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) in corporations. Yet the reforms face difficulties ranging from possible constitutional challenges to critical limitations in their scale, scope and degree of legal obligation and practical effects. In this Article, we provide an old answer to the new questions facing DEI policy, and offer the first close examination of how corporate law duties impel and facilitate corporate attention to diversity. Specifically, we show that corporate fiduciaries are bound by their duties of loyalty to take affirmative steps to make sure that corporations comply with important civil rights and anti-discrimination laws and norms designed to ensure fair access to economic opportunity. We also show how corporate law principles like the business judgment rule do not just authorize, but indeed encourage American corporations to take effective action to help reduce racial and gender inequality, and increase inclusion, tolerance and diversity given the rational basis that exists connecting good DEI practices corporate reputation and sustainable firm value. By both incorporating requirements to comply with key anti-discrimination laws mandatorily, and enabling corporate DEI policies that go well beyond the legal minimum, corporate law offers critical tools with which corporations may address DEI goals that other reforms do not—and that can embed a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of corporate interactions with employees, customers, communities, and society generally. The question therefore is not whether corporate leaders can take effective action to help reduce racial and gender inequality—but will they?

An Empirical Examination of the Factors Associated with the Commutation of State Death Row Prisoners’ Sentences between 1986 and 2005

Abstract: Commutation is usually a death row prisoner’s last hope of evading his or her capital sentence. However, unlike many other stages of the death penalty process, little research focuses on the factors that affect decisions to commute or allow a death sentence to go forward, and that which has been conducted utilizes data which is now nearly a decade old. This paper seeks to examine personal and demographic factors associated with commutation decisions and to resolve incon- sistent findings in the prior research. Using the statistical method of multiple logistic regression, this paper finds statistically significant disparities in the odds of commutation by sex (women have an eleven-fold increase in odds of commuta- tion), race (nonwhite prisoners have twice the odds of commutation), geography (southern prisoners have less than one-fifth the odds of commutation), and education (college educated offenders have one-fifth the odds of commutation). After adjusting for other factors, this research does not find evidence that, across the run of cases, criminal history or severity significantly influence commutation decisions. This research, while unable to generate conclusions about any indi- vidual case, provides evidence that executives’ commutation decisionmaking is driven more by personal characteristics — some of which are troubling — than by criminal culpability.