University of Colorado Law Review

Introduction Shortly after the financial crash that spiraled into the Great Depression, Congress passed extensive laws governing securities and securities markets.[1] These securities laws protect investors by imposing disclosure requirements and liability upon issuers for fraudulent practices.[2] Absent an exception, the laws require disclosing material information or an exemption from the disclosure process[3] and provide a private right of action for material misstatements and omissions.[4] These protections are more extensive than common law fraud claims.[5] More importantly, these protections are integral to the efficiency and Continue reading →

Introduction I would like to express my profound gratitude to Professor Erik Gerding and the editors of the University of Colorado Law Review for organizing and hosting the May 2021 conference that evaluated my scholarship on regulating megabanks,[1] and for publishing this symposium issue. I would also like to thank the conference participants and the authors of the Foreword and the Articles included in this Issue for their very kind comments about my academic career. I am especially grateful to Professor Patricia McCoy for her Continue reading →

The narrative that emerged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 financial crisis has focused on nonbank financial intermediation as the primary vulnerability that plagued financial markets starting in March of 2020 and the exogenous nature of a public health crisis as a unique precipitating event. As a result, the crisis has largely been viewed as vindication for financial regulation as it applies to banks, with the Federal Reserve playing the role of heroic rescuer of the financial system. This Article offers an alternative—and critical—analysis of the Continue reading →

Introduction Art Wilmarth quips that he’s like “your crazy uncle.”[1] Rather than an uncle (crazy or otherwise), most scholars of financial regulation think of him as the “father” of banking law. No one knows more about banking law, its history and policy, than Art Wilmarth. I was fortunate enough to spend two years in an office directly below Art’s at the George Washington University Law School. Despite the heft of Art’s knowledge, his presence above my office felt less like a weight and more like Continue reading →

When the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act authorized financial conglomeration in 1999, Professor Arthur Wilmarth, Jr. presciently predicted that diversified financial holding companies would try to exploit their bank subsidiaries by transferring government subsidies to their nonbank affiliates. To prevent financial conglomerates from taking advantage of their insured depository subsidiaries in this way, policymakers instructed a bank’s board of directors to act in the best interests of the bank, rather than the bank’s holding company. This symposium Article, written in honor of Professor Wilmarth’s retirement, contends that this Continue reading →

PDF: Patricia A. McCoy,* Foreword: Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr., A Scholar of Uncommon Conviction, Integrity, and Boldness The year 1992, when I entered academe, was a paradoxical time to become a banking law scholar. Even though the nation was emerging from a recession and the years-long savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, the mainstream banking-law field was in the thrall of neoclassical law and economics. The Chicago School reigned, and leading bank regulatory scholars regularly opposed government intervention based on theoretical assertions of market discipline with Continue reading →