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Last month, we previewed what looked to be a momentous term for the Supreme Court, highlighting three cases in particular. Recently, the Court granted permission for the Solicitor General to participate in oral argument in two of those cases: the whistleblower case Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers, and the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”) case Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees’ Retirement Fund.
Massive corporate scandals have become all too familiar in America’s finance industry. Wells Fargo and Equifax offer two prominent examples that are still seared in our collective memories.
The kids are back in school and the Supreme Court is back in session. When Justice Ginsburg described the fall term as momentous, she was most likely referring to the blockbuster cases that will shape American life from the ballot box to the bake shop. The Court will hear argument on political gerrymandering, workers’ rights, digital privacy, and whether a cakemaker can legally refuse to serve gay couples in the name of religious freedom.
You can take the kid out of the Bronx, but you can’t take the Bronx out of the kid. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor made headlines recently when she attended a Red Sox/Yankees game to support her beloved Yankees and their breakout star, Aaron Judge.
Silicon Valley is known for disrupting industries, and some of its most storied residents seem ready to upend the IPO world–not with technology, but with moxie. Snap, Inc. made headlines* this past spring with its novel initial public offering (IPO) selling “Class A” common shares without voting rights. Rather than the standard practice of taking an investor’s capital in exchange for the right to hold the company’s management accountable for its use, Snap sold over 200 million shares at $17 apiece without giving those investors any voting rights. Instead, Snap’s two co-founders retained 88.5 percent of the company’s voting power.
Much has been made, since the Trump administration took office backed by a Republican-controlled Congress, about the potential repeal of The Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”). Many interested in Wall Street regulation and reform expressed concern over this prospect, given that Dodd-Frank was passed in the wake of the Financial Crisis in an effort to prevent some of the more egregious financial excesses that led to the market collapse.