Halliburton II: A Loser\u27s History

The Supreme Court was presented with an opportunity to bring fundamental reform to securities class actions last term in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P John Fund, Inc.. The Court ducked that opportunity, passing the buck to Congress to undo the mess that the Court had created a quarter century prior in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. Congress\u27s history in dealing with securities class actions suggests that reform is unlikely to come from the legislature anytime soon. The Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be satisfied with the status quo as well. With these institutional actors resisting reform, corporations and their shareholders may resort to self-help in dealing with the cost and distraction created by securities class actions. Paradoxically, resistance to reform of securities class actions may result in self-help measures that eliminate securities class actions-and their deterrent value-altogether

Securities Law in the Sixties: The Supreme Court, the Second Circuit, and the Triumph of Purpose Over Text

This Article analyzes the Supreme Court’s leading securities cases from 1962 to 1972—SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, Inc.; J.I. Case Co. v. Borak; Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co.; Superintendent of Insurance v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co.; and Affiliated Ute of Utah v. United States—relying not just on the published opinions, but also the Justices’ internal letters, memos, and conference notes. The Sixties Court did not simply apply the text as enacted by Congress, but instead invoked the securities laws’ purposes as a guide to interpretation. The Court became a partner of Congress in shaping the securities laws, rather than a mere agent. The interpretive space opened by the Court’s invocation of purpose allowed a dramatic expansion in the law of securities fraud. Encouraged by the Court’s dynamic statutory interpretation doctrine, the Second Circuit—the “Mother Court” for securities law—developed new causes of action that transformed both public and private enforcement of the securities laws. The insider trading prohibition found a new home in the flexible confines of Rule 10b-5. Implied private rights of action encouraged class actions to flourish. The growth of fiduciary duty in the 1960s created a blueprint for “federal corporation law.” The Supreme Court’s “counterrevolutionary” turn in the 1970s cut back on purposivism and the doctrinal innovations of the Sixties, but the approaches to insider trading and private rights of action survived, remaining pillars of securities regulation today

The SEC\u27s Shift to Administrative Proceedings: An Empirical Assessment

Congress has repeatedly expanded the authority of the SEC to pursueviolations of securities laws in proceedings adjudicated by the SEC\u27s own administrative law judges, most recently through the Dodd-Frank Act. We report the results from an empirical study of SEC enforcement actions against non-financial public companies to assess the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on the balance between civil court and administrative enforcement actions. We show a general decline in the number of court actions and an increase in the number of administrative proceedings post-Dodd-Frank. At the same time, we show an increase in average civil penalties post-Dodd-Frank for both court actions and administrative proceedings involving non-financial public companies. Companies were also more willing to cooperate with the SEC, consistent with an increase in the SEC\u27s leverage in administrativeproceedings

The Future of Securities Law in the Supreme Court

Since the enactment of the first federal securities statute in 1933, securities law has illustrated key shifts in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. During the New Deal, the Court’s securities law decisions shifted almost overnight from open hostility toward the newly-expanded administrative state to broad deference to agency expertise. In the 1940s, securities cases helped build the legal foundation for a broadly enabling administrative law. The 1960s saw the Warren Court creating new implied rights of action in securities law illustrative of the Court’s approach to statutes generally. The stage seemed set for the rise of “federal corporate law.” The Court swiftly reversed itself, however, with Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. leading the effort to confine the reach of the securities laws. Powell succeeded in imposing a strict constructionism in securities law that never quite took hold in criminal or constitutional law. When there was a significant shift for the Court, securities law was prominent—at least until Powell’s retirement. Since then, the Court has meandered in its approach to securities law, its decisions neither expansive nor restrictive. The Court’s docket in this space has become a random walk of indifference. What is the future of securities law in the Supreme Court? We doubt that securities law’s bellwether status during its early days is likely to recur. The Securities and Exchange Commission, a groundbreaking agency of the 1930s, now seems like a small cog in a much larger administrative machine. Without prompting from the SEC, it is quite possible that the Court will continue to meander in the field of securities law. The Court— which Franklin Delano Roosevelt populated with appointees having front-line experience writing the securities statutes, running the SEC, or defending the constitutionality of the securities laws—has not had a member with any direct experience with securities law for more than thirty years. If the Court’s spotlight were to shine again on securities, we suggest it might well be a Chevron question of the SEC’s authority. Proponents of corporate social responsibility could push the boundaries of the securities laws beyond the SEC’s historical focus on disclosure. Such a move could also be met by a federalism challenge to securities law preempting the field of state corporate law. These possibilities might once again put securities law at the center of the Court’s work to develop the law of the administrative state

The Future of Securities Law in the Supreme Court

Since the enactment of the first federal securities statute in 1933, securities law has illustrated key shifts in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. During the New Deal, the Court’s securities law decisions shifted almost overnight from open hostility toward the newly-expanded administrative state to broad deference to agency expertise. In the 1940s, securities cases helped build the legal foundation for a broadly enabling administrative law. The 1960s saw the Warren Court creating new implied rights of action in securities law illustrative of the Court’s approach to statutes generally. The stage seemed set for the rise of “federal corporate law.” The Court swiftly reversed itself, however, with Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. leading the effort to confine the reach of the securities laws. Powell succeeded in imposing a strict constructionism in securities law that never quite took hold in criminal or constitutional law. When there was a significant shift for the Court, securities law was prominent—at least until Powell’s retirement. Since then, the Court has meandered in its approach to securities law, its decisions neither expansive nor restrictive. The Court’s docket in this space has become a random walk of indifference. What is the future of securities law in the Supreme Court? We doubt that securities law’s bellwether status during its early days is likely to recur. The Securities and Exchange Commission, a groundbreaking agency of the 1930s, now seems like a small cog in a much larger administrative machine. Without prompting from the SEC, it is quite possible that the Court will continue to meander in the field of securities law. The Court— which Franklin Delano Roosevelt populated with appointees having front-line experience writing the securities statutes, running the SEC, or defending the constitutionality of the securities laws—has not had a member with any direct experience with securities law for more than thirty years. If the Court’s spotlight were to shine again on securities, we suggest it might well be a Chevron question of the SEC’s authority. Proponents of corporate social responsibility could push the boundaries of the securities laws beyond the SEC’s historical focus on disclosure. Such a move could also be met by a federalism challenge to securities law preempting the field of state corporate law. These possibilities might once again put securities law at the center of the Court’s work to develop the law of the administrative state

Measurement of νˉμ\bar{\nu}_{\mu} and νμ\nu_{\mu} charged current inclusive cross sections and their ratio with the T2K off-axis near detector

We report a measurement of cross section $\sigma(\nu_{\mu}+{\rm nucleus}\rightarrow\mu^{-}+X)$ and the first measurements of the cross section $\sigma(\bar{\nu}_{\mu}+{\rm nucleus}\rightarrow\mu^{+}+X)$ and their ratio $R(\frac{\sigma(\bar \nu)}{\sigma(\nu)})$ at (anti-)neutrino energies below 1.5 GeV. We determine the single momentum bin cross section measurements, averaged over the T2K $\bar{\nu}/\nu$-flux, for the detector target material (mainly Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Copper) with phase space restricted laboratory frame kinematics of $\theta_{\mu}$500 MeV/c. The results are $\sigma(\bar{\nu})=\left( 0.900\pm0.029{\rm (stat.)}\pm0.088{\rm (syst.)}\right)\times10^{-39}$ and $\sigma(\nu)=\left( 2.41\ \pm0.022{\rm{(stat.)}}\pm0.231{\rm (syst.)}\ \right)\times10^{-39}$in units of cm$^{2}$/nucleon and$R\left(\frac{\sigma(\bar{\nu})}{\sigma(\nu)}\right)= 0.373\pm0.012{\rm (stat.)}\pm0.015{\rm (syst.)}$.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure

Model-independent search for CP violation in D0→K−K+π−π+ and D0→π−π+π+π− decays

A search for CP violation in the phase-space structures of D0 and View the MathML source decays to the final states K−K+π−π+ and π−π+π+π− is presented. The search is carried out with a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. For the K−K+π−π+ final state, the four-body phase space is divided into 32 bins, each bin with approximately 1800 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 9.1%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 6.5% observed. The phase space of the π−π+π+π− final state is partitioned into 128 bins, each bin with approximately 2500 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 41%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 5.5% observed. All results are consistent with the hypothesis of no CP violation at the current sensitivity

Search for the lepton-flavor-violating decays Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓

A search for the lepton-flavor-violating decays Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓ is performed with a data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0  fb-1 of pp collisions at √s=7  TeV, collected by the LHCb experiment. The observed number of Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓ candidates is consistent with background expectations. Upper limits on the branching fractions of both decays are determined to be B(Bs0→e±μ∓)101  TeV/c2 and MLQ(B0→e±μ∓)>126  TeV/c2 at 95% C.L., and are a factor of 2 higher than the previous bounds

Measurements of long-range near-side angular correlations in sNN=5\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=5TeV proton-lead collisions in the forward region

Two-particle angular correlations are studied in proton-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_{\text{NN}}}=5$TeV, collected with the LHCb detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on data recorded in two beam configurations, in which either the direction of the proton or that of the lead ion is analysed. The correlations are measured in the laboratory system as a function of relative pseudorapidity, $\Delta\eta$, and relative azimuthal angle, $\Delta\phi$, for events in different classes of event activity and for different bins of particle transverse momentum. In high-activity events a long-range correlation on the near side, $\Delta\phi \approx 0$, is observed in the pseudorapidity range $2.0<\eta<4.9$. This measurement of long-range correlations on the near side in proton-lead collisions extends previous observations into the forward region up to $\eta=4.9$. The correlation increases with growing event activity and is found to be more pronounced in the direction of the lead beam. However, the correlation in the direction of the lead and proton beams are found to be compatible when comparing events with similar absolute activity in the direction analysed.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-040.htm