The financial system is the infrastructure on which all economic activity takes place with enormous political and distributive stakes. The law of financial institutions is thus of central concern to students of diverse interests: aspiring private practitioners, regulators, and public interest lawyers concerned with social justice. We will develop an integrative picture of financial law by focusing on three core areas-
1. Money & Banking that enable economic exchange and the payment of debt;
2. Capital Markets, where society’s savings are channeled into productive investment and;
3. Derivatives Markets that allow the trading of risk.
A decade now since the Global Financial Crisis, the legal reforms put into place are profoundly transforming all three areas and their interrelationships. We will study these transformations, focusing on the law of commercial banks and the Federal Reserve (Part 1); broker-dealers, hedge funds, and registered investment companies (Part 2); and central clearing counterparties (Part 3). No background in finance or economics is required and students of all backgrounds are encouraged to register.
Spring 2018
Nadav Orian Peer
Regulation