MBELR Online

By: Matthew Capelli President Biden proposed to limit the like-kind exchange in his April 2021 American Families Plan.1 This proposal would negatively affect real estate because real estate investors would not be able to defer capital gains taxes when they exchange property. Under current law, a real estate investor does not recognize gain “on the exchange of real property held

The prevalence of drug and alcohol addiction in the United States is no secret. In a 2018 study, about 11% of people 12 years and older reported illicit drug use within the past month, while “bout 16% of the adult population reported binge drinking” within the same period.1 Therefore, it is not surprising that the addiction treatment industry is

Delaware is America’s venue of choice for business incorporation. This popularity means most corporate directors are subject to the whims of Delaware’s powerful, but little known, non-jury trial court: The Court of Chancery.  This is good for most directors. The Chancery is known for making quick work of frivolous suits; it normally insulates directors from liability by doing so. Given

This blog post examines Robinhood’s successful business model, two of its legal battles, and its outlook. A New and Successful Investing Model Launched on Apple’s App Store in December 2014, Robinhood makes it easy for its investors to trade.1 Signing up for a Robinhood account on its simple app takes five minutes or less.2 Moreover, the brokerage firm does not

Two major Chinese technology companies—ByteDance and Tencent—have been in the news recently, but why? These two Chinese companies have three things in common: they are both variable interest entities, they both traversed into the United States market, and they were both met with pushback when doing so. Specifically, they were seen as national security threats to the United States because

Introduction As the musical duo Zager & Evans once predicted, “In the year 5555, your arms hangin’ limp at your sides, your legs got nothin’ to do; some machine’s doin’ that for you.”1 Once relegated to such science fiction music, claims like these have started to gain traction among scholars in the world of artificial intelligence. Indeed these scholars hypothesize

Introduction Naked short selling occurs when shares that have not yet been determined to exist are shorted.1 The issue is that an investor is selling shares that they do not yet possess, nor have they confirmed these shares even exist.2  Thus, naked short selling offers an avenue for an individual to still participate in that security without any borrowing prior

Volcker Rule Defined The Volcker Rule which was passed as section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.1 The Volcker Rule (“Rule”) generally prohibits banks from using customer deposits to trade securities, derivatives, or commodities (collectively known as proprietary trading).2The Rule also carves out an exception for banks when they are engaging in market-making activities, which

Blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs—what is it all? It all starts with distributed ledger.1 The distributed ledger is a virtual ledger (in common parlance, a record) that is shared across a network of computers. A copy of the ledger is on every computer across the network. Each block in a distributed ledger contains data that must be validated and approved by every

Introduction: What is a N/DPA, and What Explains Their Proliferation? Corporate criminal liability has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past few decades.1 Corporate prosecutions are plummeting in numbers, whereas the use of non and deferred prosecution agreements (“N/DPAs”) has increased dramatically in recent years.2 Today, most publicly held firms that are sanctioned for federal crimes by the Department of