America\u27s Anti-Fraud Ecosystem and the Problem of Social Trust: Perspectives from Legal Practitioners

This contribution revives an autobiographical genre present in law reviews roughly a half-century ago, in which seasoned legal practitioners offered perspective on vital issues. Here, a senior deputy attorney general, a former federal prosecutor, a corporate defense attorney, and a legal aid lawyer each draw on their career experience to explore what they see as significant problems related to the law of consumer and investor fraud and the nature of consumer and investor trust. Their reflections emphasize the significance of law in action—how key actors seek to deploy legal mechanisms related to fraud and adjust their strategies in light of institutional changes, with powerful implications for legal culture and the practical workings of the legal system. They also offer sometimes conflicting recommendations for how American law might better respond to the enduring, thorny problem of deception in marketplaces. The practitioners all agree about the importance of leveraging data analytics to focus attention on the most problematic practices and firms, as well as the need to design disclosure rules that take behavioral realities into account. But there is instructive disagreement about the extent to which current rules appropriately balance the capacity of individuals who have experienced fraud-related harms to gain redress, against the imperative of shielding innocent firms from abusive allegations of wrongdoing. A brief analytical introduction emphasizes the advantages of an ethnographic approach as a means of understanding both positive and normative dimensions of fraud law

American Better Business Bureaus, the Truth-in-Advertising Movement, and the Complexities of Legitimizing Business Self-Regulation over the Long Term

This essay considers the question of how strategies of legitimatizing private regulatory governance evolve over the long term. It focuses on the century-long history of the American Better Business Bureau (BBB) network, a linked set of business-funded non-governmental organizations devoted to promoting truthful marketing. The BBBs took on important roles in standard-setting, monitoring, public education, and enforcement, despite never enjoying explicit delegation of authority from Congress or state legislatures. This effort depended on building legitimacy with three separate groups with very different perspectives and interests—the business community, a fractured American state, and the American public, in their roles as consumers and investors. The BBBs initially managed to build a strong reputation with each constituency during its founding period, from 1912 to 1933. The Bureaus then in many ways adapted successfully to the emergence of a more assertive regulatory state from the New Deal through the mid 1970s. Eventually, however, the resurgence of conservative politics in the United States exposed the challenges of satisfying such divergent stakeholders, and led the BBBs to focus resolutely on shoring up its support from the business establishment. That choice, over time, undercut the Bureaus standing with other stakeholders, and especially the wider public. This history illustrates: the salience of generational amnesia within private regulatory institutions; the profound impact that the shifting nature of public faith in government can have on the strategies and reputation of private regulatory bodies; and the extent to which private regulators face long-term trade-offs among strategies to sustain legitimacy with different audiences. It also suggests a rich set of research questions for longer-term histories of other private regulatory institutions, in the United States, other societies, and at the international level

Government and markets: toward a new theory of regulation

- Divulgação dos SUMÁRIOS das obras recentemente incorporadas ao acervo da Biblioteca Ministro Oscar Saraiva do STJ. Em respeito à Lei de Direitos Autorais, não disponibilizamos a obra na íntegra.- Localização na estante: 339.137:35.078.2 G721

America\u27s Anti-Fraud Ecosystem and the Problem of Social Trust: Perspectives from Legal Practitioners

This contribution revives an autobiographical genre present in law reviews roughly a half-century ago, in which seasoned legal practitioners offered perspective on vital issues. Here, a senior deputy attorney general, a former federal prosecutor, a corporate defense attorney, and a legal aid lawyer each draw on their career experience to explore what they see as significant problems related to the law of consumer and investor fraud and the nature of consumer and investor trust. Their reflections emphasize the significance of law in action—how key actors seek to deploy legal mechanisms related to fraud and adjust their strategies in light of institutional changes, with powerful implications for legal culture and the practical workings of the legal system. They also offer sometimes conflicting recommendations for how American law might better respond to the enduring, thorny problem of deception in marketplaces. The practitioners all agree about the importance of leveraging data analytics to focus attention on the most problematic practices and firms, as well as the need to design disclosure rules that take behavioral realities into account. But there is instructive disagreement about the extent to which current rules appropriately balance the capacity of individuals who have experienced fraud-related harms to gain redress, against the imperative of shielding innocent firms from abusive allegations of wrongdoing. A brief analytical introduction emphasizes the advantages of an ethnographic approach as a means of understanding both positive and normative dimensions of fraud law

Private Cops on the Fraud Beat: The Limits of American Business Self-Regulation,1895-1932

From the late 1890s through the 1920s, a new set of nonprofit, business-funded organizations spearheaded an American campaign against commercial duplicity. These new organizations shaped the legal terrain of fraud, built massive public-education campaigns, and created a private law-enforcement capacity to rival that of the federal government. Largely born out of a desire among business elites to fend off proposals for extensive regulatory oversight of commercial speech, the antifraud crusade grew into a social movement that was influenced by prevailing ideas about social hygiene and emerging techniques of private governance. This initiative highlighted some enduring strengths of business self-regulation, such as agility in responding to regulatory problems; it also revealed a weakness, which was the tendency to overlook deceptive marketing when practiced by firms that were members of the business establishment.

The Power of Politics

Duke Law Journal\u27s 42nd Annual Administrative Law Symposium will focus on several important topics in administrative law today. Selected from over 80 proposals, the seven panelists explore issues pressing upon legislators, agency and Executive Branch officials, and judges, such as the politicization of agencies, the judicial review challenges posed by shared regulatory authority, and the emphasis on reason-giving in rulemaking. The participants will use both historical and empirical analysis to describe the current administrative-law landscape and prescribe alternatives for its future. Appearing: Edward J. Balleisen, moderator ; Stavros Gadinis (Berkeley Law), Jodi L. Short (Georgetown University), Kathryn A. Watts (University of Washington) panelists