As shopping malls struggle with declining sales and increasing vacancy rates, one of the nation’s largest mall operators, Simon Property Group, has gotten creative to stem the tide of store closures. Simon filed suit last year against Starbucks over its plan to close all retail locations for its Teavana brand of high-end specialty teas. In…
Month: February 2018
New Conductor, New Song?: The Fight Over CFPB Leadership
Created as part of the Dodd-Frank Act in wake of 2008 Financial Crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a unitary purpose: “watching out for American consumers in the market for consumer financial products and services.”1 Its tasks include monitoring financial markets for risks to consumers, rooting out unfair or deceptive practices, and providing financial…
ESPN and Private Information
In 2014, Chad Eichenberger sued the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (“ESPN”) in a class action lawsuit claiming that the company gave away the personal information of consumers who used the WatchESPN app to Adobe Systematics Inc.1 Eichenberger accessed the WatchESPN channel through his Roku Box (a digital-media streaming device). Eichenberger claimed that every time…
Equifax and the Unsustainable Status Quo
On Thursday, September 7, 2017, the credit reporting giant Equifax Inc. revealed that “highly sensitive personal and financial information for around 143 million U.S. consumers was compromised in an [ongoing] cybersecurity breach” that started as early as mid-May of 2017.1 According to Equifax, criminals were able to access, among other things, “the social security numbers,…
Uncertainty With Chinese Foreign Direct Investment Under the Trump Administration; Expanding Role of CFIUS
The People’s Republic of China has grown into the world’s second largest economy, the largest manufacturing nation, and a major political/diplomatic presence at a rapid pace. For the first few decades post-1950, China relied on an inflow of foreign direct investment (“FDI”) while the country’s ability to offer cheap labor to companies and lopsided trade…
Green Finance to Fuel Sustainable Development
Nations around the world have taken action to address climate change. The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 set goals for participating member states to reduce their impact on climate change and keep global temperatures below a certain threshold.1 Governments have enacted various regulations taking environmental effects into account, such as the Clean Air Act and…
Corruption Scandal in College Basketball
In the sportswear industry, Nike is the main player, but well-known competitors Adidas, Under Armour, and others are constantly attempting to improve their position in the market. One way an apparel company can gain an edge is to sign superstar athletes to wear their gear and advertise their brand. Famously, professional basketball players LeBron James,…
Where are the Funding Portals? (Part 2)
In the previous blog post, I detailed the reasons behind why there haven’t been very many funding portals.1 This blog post will propose an idea that would allow many more companies to register as funding portals. This would hopefully allow small companies more access to regulation crowdfunding offerings, and place the number of funding portals…
Co-determination in Germany: A Model for the U.S.?
The American conception of the duty of loyalty requires that directors act solely in the best interest of the corporation.1 In Germany, however, corporations are perceived to serve a broad social function rather than simply aiming to serve shareholder interests, and there is significant freedom under German law for company directors to factor in considerations unrelated to profit…
Can a Loan Acquirer be a Loan Originator?
The outcome of a recent mortgage case from the Fourth Circuit offers potentially exciting news to financial institutions engaged in the business of buying loans. Although the case received little to no coverage in mainstream news, it creates an ongoing split with the Ninth Circuit and has the potential to drastically change restitution calculations following…