Skin-in-the-Game: Risk Retention Lessons from Credit Card Securitization
Adam J. Levitin · April 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 813 (2013) The Dodd-Frank Act’s “skin-in-the-game” credit risk retention requirement is the major reform of the securitization market following the housing bubble. Skin-in-the-game mandates that securitizers retain a 5% interest in their securitizations. The premise behind skin-in-the-game is that it will lessen the moral... Read More
Downgrading Rating Agency Reform
Jeffrey Manns · April 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 749 (2013) The Dodd-Frank Act promised to usher in sweeping changes to overhaul the rating agency industry. But in the years after the Act’s passage, hopes have turned into disappointment as the most important questions of how to enhance rating agency competition, accuracy, and accountability... Read More
Closing Wall Street’s Commodity and Swaps Betting Parlors: Legal Remedies to Combat Needlessly Gambling up the Price of Crude Oil Beyond What Market Fundamentals Dictate
Michael Greenberger · April 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 707 (2013) The price of crude oil in the futures markets has oscillated wildly during the past five years. Although these price swings may partly be a result of insufficient supply meeting large demand for oil, economic data demonstrate that market fundamentals have in fact... Read More
New Paradigms and Familiar Tools in the New Derivatives Regulation
Arthur W.S. Duff; David Zaring · April 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 677 (2013) Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act is a study in contrasts. On the one hand, Dodd-Frank transforms the U.S. approach to derivatives regulation from a lasses-faire, almost no oversight paradigm into one featuring heavy supervision, supervision focused... Read More
Introduction
Lisa M. Fairfax; Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr. · April 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 663 (2013) On March 2, 2012, The George Washington University Law School’s Center for Law, Economics & Finance and The George Washington Law Review jointly hosted a symposium entitled “Striking the Right Balance: Investor and Consumer Protection in the New... Read More
Is “Protection” Always in the Best Interests of the Government?: An Argument to Narrow the Scope of Suspension and Debarment
Yuri Weigel · March 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 627 (2013) The federal government spent over $550 billion procuring goods, services, and construction from the private sector last year. To keep these taxpayer dollars from going to inscrutable contractors, the government uses the remedies of suspension and debarment to ensure that only “responsible” parties... Read More
Casting a Wider ‘Net: How and Why State Laws Restricting Municipal Broadband Networks Must Be Modified
Jeff Stricker · March 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 589 (2013) One of Congress’s purposes in passing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was to encourage the widespread deployment of broadband Internet. As municipalities began constructing their own broadband networks, private sector Internet service providers, alarmed at the prospect of competing with these public networks,... Read More
Lost in Translation: The Affordable Care Act’s Attempt to Make Insurance-Speak Understandable
Anna Crane · March 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 556 (2013) The health insurance market is a confusing place for most consumers. When trying to determine what services are covered, an individual may have to wade through multiple plan documents and interpret unfamiliar language. Even if a consumer does make such an effort, they... Read More
Regulating Bioreactor Landfills to Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Provide an Alternative Energy Source
Jessica L. Bayles · March 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 526 (2013) Most household garbage in the United States is disposed of in landfills. The decomposition of our nation’s trash in landfills creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. This gas could be captured and used as a source of... Read More
The Rise of Directed Verdict: Jury Power in Civil Cases Before the Federal Rules of 1938
Renee Lettow Lerner · March 2013 81 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 448 (2013) Jury practice in the state and federal courts evolved dramatically in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Around the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, important legal thinkers praised the civil jury as a bulwark against judicial... Read More