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…
Category: Blog Articles
Deceptive Business Practices in Addiction Treatment
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 “[a]bout 16% of the [US] adult population reported binge drinking” within the same period.1 Therefore, it is not surprising that…
Delaware’s Caremark Revival: do directors have new duties?
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…
Robinhood: Success, Legal Battles, and Outlook
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,…
Two Major Chinese Companies with Three Things in Common
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…
Artificial Intelligence & The Legal Field
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…
Naked Short Selling Amidst the GameStop Short Squeeze & What the SEC Should Do About It
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…
The Volcker Rule Does Not Do Its Job: A Former Trader’s Perspective
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…
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Murky Regulatory Waters
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…
The Proliferation of N/DPAs and Their Problematic Nature
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…