The Supreme Court has determined the scope of federal securities laws in a series of cases in which it has read section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act as either prohibiting certain misconduct or authorizing the SEC to regulate that conduct and only that conduct. Judging by the language,...

Courts frequently say that wilfulness matters when awarding damages for breach of contract. Such thinking is, however, at odds with the basic expectation damages principle: if we are trying to put the injured promisee in the position she would have been in but-for the breach, the promisor's...