The first panel’s topic within the symposium on the financial meltdown of 2008–2009 is the deliciously broad question: “Did capitalism fail?” I have taken it as an invitation to ponder not the merits and demerits of modern global financial systems, but instead to continue my assessment of how those of us who are not financial [...]

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was created to respond to a financial panic. Some might say that it was created in panic. Congress appropriated a huge sum of money, gave the Secretary of the Treasury enormous latitude to spend the money, and provided ambiguous, and, some might say, contradictory direction on the goals and [...]

Congress authorized the Treasury Department to use outside entities (contractors and financial agents) to implement the TARP bailout program. Treasury embraced this authority, engaging in the wholesale delegation of the administration of TARP to these outsiders. While outsourcing government work is common, one aspect of Treasury’s outsourcing is not: its imposition of fiduciary-based ethics standards [...]

In both business and government, we can distinguish between two types of conflicts. One type traditionally and more effectively dealt with by law is a direct conflict, involving self-interest narrowly construed. Two common examples are the government official who is negotiating for a private sector job with an employer with whom he is doing business [...]

Corporate governance reforms strive to shore up directors’ roles, not only seeking to ensure that boards have sufficient incentives to engage in effective oversight, but also aiming to ensure that boards are held accountable for their oversight failures. The newest wave of reforms is no exception. The current financial crisis not only ushered in an [...]

The Article traces the terms of the government’s private ownership during the financial crisis, and provides a near-term critique of the government’s corporate ownership experience. It concludes that the government largely achieved its economic and social goals. The government ultimately saved the financial system, stalled a financial panic, and averted a much more significant economic [...]

The question before us is whether Dodd-Frank’s corporate governance provisions, like those of SOX, are mere quackery. Part I of the Article focuses on the problem of quack corporate governance regulation in the abstract. What are the defining characteristics of a quack law? Why would Congress adopt such laws? What are the consequences of such [...]

The shareholder empowerment provisions enacted as part of the recent bailout legislation are internally incoherent because they fail to address the short-termist realities of shareholder ownership today. Ownership has separated from ownership in modern corporate America: individual investors now largely hold stock through mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds. The incentives of these short-term [...]

Domestic violence asylum applicants have spent years struggling to demonstrate they are a particular social group within the meaning of refugee statutes and thus worthy of asylum in the United States. Recent statements by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a favorable outcome for the applicant in In re L.R. in December 2010 effectively [...]