Corporate Finance in the Law School Curriculum

Review of: Corporate Finance: Cases and Materials. By Robert W. Hamilton: West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota, 1984

Foreword: Bankruptcy’s New and Old Frontiers

This Symposium marks the fortieth anniversary of the enactment of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code (the “1978 Code” or the “Code”) with an extended look at seismic changes that currently are reshaping Chapter 11 reorganization. Today’s typical Chapter 11 case looks radically different than did the typical case in the Code’s early years. In those days, Chapter 11 afforded debtors a cozy haven. Most everything that mattered occurred within the context of the formal proceeding, where the debtor enjoyed agenda control, a leisurely timetable, and judicial solicitude. The safe haven steadily disappeared over time, displaced by a range of countervailing forces and a cooperative bankruptcy bench. Lenders, especially debtor-in-possession (DIP) financers, gradually began to shape the trajectory of many proceedings. They today determine the course of most of the cases. More recently, additional players such as hedge funds and equity funds have also entered the scene, altering the bargaining dynamic. New financial instruments complicate debtors’ capital structures and creditor incentives. Even the sites and modes of decisionmaking have shifted, as today’s key decisions are negotiated and embedded in contracts concluded even before the debtor files for bankruptcy. The changes, which continue to accumulate, are fundamental. Some of the most important and controversial of these new developments, such as the use of restructuring support agreements to lock up votes for a potential reorganization, will likely have seen further evolution by the time this Foreword appears in print. This Foreword provides context for the Symposium’s academic contributions by recounting the historical developments that have brought us where we are. After chronicling the origins, New Deal redirection, and recent evolution of corporate reorganization, we describe some of the remarkable and often counterintuitive insights the articles in this Symposium offer for the current moment. We conclude by venturing a few thoughts about the future. As we shall see, the Nietzschean vision of history as eternal recurrence has surprising explanatory power in the bankruptcy context

Versatile Potentiostat with Optional Computer Control

A versatile potentiostat which can supply a maximum of 125 ma is described. The potentiostat uses readily available electronic components and an interface is detailed which allows the potentiostat optional computer control

Using Tracer Technology to Characterize Contaminated Pipelines

The Pipeline Characterization Using Tracers (PCUT) technique uses conservative and partitioning, reactive or other interactive tracers to remotely determine the amount of contaminant within a run of piping or ductwork. The PCUT system was motivated by a method that has been successfully used to characterize subsurface soil contaminants and is similar in operation to that of a gas chromatography column. By injecting a ?slug? of both conservative and partitioning tracers at one end (or section) of the piping and measuring the time history of the concentration of the tracers at the other end (or another section) of the pipe, the presence, location, and amount of contaminant within the pipe or duct can be determined. The tracers are transported along the pipe or duct by a gas flow field, typically air or nitrogen, which has a velocity that is slow enough so that the partitioning tracer has time to interact with the contaminant before the tracer slug completely passes over the contaminate region. PCUT not only identifies the presence of contamination, it also can locate the contamination along the pipeline and quantify the amount of residual. PCUT can be used in support of deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) of piping and ducts that may have been contaminated with hazardous chemicals such as chlorinated solvents, petroleum products, radioactive materials, or heavy metals, such as mercury

Resonant Spin-Flavor Conversion of Supernova Neutrinos and Deformation of the Electron Antineutrino Spectrum

The neutrino spin-flavor conversion of \bar\nu_e and \nu_\mu which is induced by the interaction of the Majorana neutrino magnetic moment and magnetic fields in the collapse-driven supernova is investigated in detail. We calculate the conversion probability by using the latest precollapse models of Woosley and Weaver (1995), and also those of Nomono and Hashimoto (1988), changing the stellar mass and metallicity in order to estimate the effect of the astrophysical uncertainties. Contour maps of the conversion probability are given for all the models as a function of neutrino mass squared difference and the neutrino magnetic moment times magnetic fields. It is shown that in the solar metallicity models some observational effects are expected with \Delta m^2 = 10^{-5}--10^{-1} [eV^2] and \mu_\nu >~ 10^{-12} (10^9 G / B_0) [\mu_B], where B_0 is the strength of the magnetic fields at the surface of the iron core. We also find that although the dependence on the stellar models or stellar mass is not so large, the metallicity of precollapse stars has considerable effects on this conversion. Such effects may be seen in a supernova in the Large or Small Magellanic Clouds, and should be taken into account when one considers an upper bound on \mu_\nu from the SN1987A data.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, using revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev. D. 16 figures attatche

Risk-shifting Through Issuer Liability and Corporate Monitoring

This article explores how issuer liability re-allocates fraud risk and how risk allocation may reduce the incidence of fraud. In the US, the apparent absence of individual liability of officeholders and insufficient monitoring by insurers under-mine the potential deterrent effect of securities litigation. The underlying reasons why both mechanisms remain ineffective are collective action problems under the prevailing dispersed ownership structure, which eliminates the incentives to moni-tor set by issuer liability. This article suggests that issuer liability could potentially have a stronger deterrent effect when it shifts risk to individuals or entities holding a larger financial stake. Thus, it would enlist large shareholders in monitoring in much of Europe. The same risk-shifting effect also has implications for the debate about the relationship between securities litigation and creditor interests. Credi-tors’ claims should not be given precedence over claims of defrauded investors (e.g., because of the capital maintenance principle), since bearing some of the fraud risk will more strongly incentivise large creditors, such as banks, to monitor the firm in jurisdictions where corporate debt is relatively concentrated

Prolonged Antibiotic Treatment does not Prevent Intra-Abdominal Abscesses in Perforated Appendicitis

Contains fulltext : 89619.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Children with perforated appendicitis have a relatively high risk of intra-abdominal abscesses. There is no evidence that prolonged antibiotic treatment after surgery reduces intra-abdominal abscess formation. We compared two patient groups with perforated appendicitis with different postoperative antibiotic treatment protocols. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed patients younger than age 18 years who underwent appendectomy for perforated appendicitis at two academic hospitals between January 1992 and December 2006. Perforation was diagnosed during surgery and confirmed during histopathological evaluation. Patients in hospital A received 5 days of antibiotics postoperatively, unless decided otherwise on clinical grounds. Patients in hospital B received antibiotics for 5 days, continued until serum C-reactive protein (CRP) was <20 mg/l. Univariate logistic regression analysis was performed on intention-to-treat basis. p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: A total of 149 children underwent appendectomy for perforated appendicitis: 68 in hospital A, and 81 in hospital B. As expected, the median (range) use of antibiotics was significantly different: 5 (range, 1-16) and 7 (range, 2-32) days, respectively (p < 0.0001). However, the incidence of postoperative intra-abdominal abscesses was similar (p = 0.95). Regression analysis demonstrated that sex (female) was a risk factor for abscess formation, whereas surgical technique and young age were not. CONCLUSIONS: Prolonged use of antibiotics after surgery for perforated appendicitis in children based on serum CRP does not reduce postoperative abscess formation.1 december 201