Recent years have witnessed the emergence and rapid growth of a large, diverse, and constantly evolving shadow payment system. The shadow payment platforms (SPPs) that populate this system perform many of the same core payment functions as conventional deposit-taking banks: including custody,...

Banking, derivatives, and structured finance may attract the lion's share of accolades and approbation in global finance—but payment systems are where the money is. Historically, payment systems in most jurisdictions have been legally and operationally intertwined with the conventional banking...

Conventional economic reasoning suggests that formal insolvency proceedings should commence once the greater of the going concern value or the liquidation value of a firm falls below the value of its liabilities. Since this test is difficult to apply in practice, an additional cash flow test is...

This article discusses the introduction of a general “fair price rule” in (European) contract law. According to such a rule, prices that create a “significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations” would not bind the disadvantaged party. Justifying this rule cannot be...

Two prominent progressive senators, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have recently proposed that employees should be allowed to elect 40 to 45 percent of the directors of large corporations. If implemented, such a reform would bring U.S. corporate law substantially closer to European...

In this essay, we propose a principled approach for government bailouts of critical/systemic firms who find themselves in COVID-19-induced financial distress. We also demonstrate why bankruptcy is the wrong tool to address the problems of these types of firms. The current pandemic threatens...