The CLS Blue Sky Blog– Corporate compliance — the internal processes that firms use to ensure that their employees do not violate applicable laws and regulations — has become big business. Regulation of business continues to grow, punctuated by landmark laws that have re-shaped the financial services (the Dodd-Frank Act) and health care (the Affordable Care Act) industries in the United States. Further, federal regulators have…
Stephen Park
PROMESA and Puerto Rico’s Pathways to Solvency
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation – Facing a self-declared “death spiral” of public debt, the Governor of Puerto Rico announced a debt moratorium earlier this year, halting payments to bondholders. A series of missed payments followed, including a landmark default on constitutionally guaranteed bonds in July. At the same time, Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA or “promise” in Spanish), which combines a debt restructuring system with federal controls over the island’s finances. But enacting PROMESA is only a first step. Coordination and engagement with creditors is the next step—and an even more complicated one—in Puerto Rico’s long journey towards solvency and fiscal stability.
Business Law Professors Honored for Research
Two UConn business law professors received prestigious research awards over the summer.
Professors Stephen Park and Robert Bird received the Hoeber Memorial Award for Excellence in Research for their article, “The Domains of Corporate Counsel in an Era of Compliance.” The Hoeber award, given in memory of prominent business law professor Ralph C. Hoeber, is awarded by the editors of the American Business Law Journal to recognize excellent research. Continue Reading
Shaping an Emerging Global Agenda
Professor Park, Colleagues Awarded UConn Academic-Plan Grant to Help Further the Study, Practice of Human Rights in Business
Business law professor Stephen Park and UConn colleagues have been awarded a $265,000 research grant under UConn’s Academic Plan to investigate ways to protect and promote human rights in the business world.Continue Reading
Tradeoffs, Conflicts, Opportunities
Business Law Conference Draws International Experts, Sparks New Ideas
Experts in business law, management and a range of social science disciplines attended a two-day conference at UConn titled, “Public Regulation and Private Governance: Competitors or Collaborators?”
Conference participants, from North America and Europe, presented 14 papers that tackled the complex topic of how public regulations and private governance can complement each other.
The keynote dinner featured Continue Reading
Corporate Compliance as Competitive Advantage
Can Corporate Compliance be Achieved without Breaking the Bank? Two UConn Professors Offer a New Way to Answer this Increasingly Important Business Question
Corporate compliance is one of the hot-button topics in business today, and the need to identify, prioritize and optimize it is a growing source of concern for companies, business managers, lawyers and legal scholars alike.Continue Reading
Business Law Professor Honored by MSFRM Program for Outstanding Teaching
Stephen Park, an assistant professor of business law, was recently honored by the MS in Financial Risk Management Program for outstanding teaching. This past December, Park was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award by the graduating class for the second consecutive academic year. Park teaches a course on Legal and Ethical Issues in Financial Risk Management. His innovative teaching emphasizes qualitative risk analysis and writing skills, and incorporates role-based simulation exercises.Continue Reading
Preventing the Next Global Debt Crisis
Could Aspects of Corporate Financial Strategies Help Prevent Sovereign Default?
Some key strategies from corporate finance could potentially help prevent governments from spiraling into financial collapse and destabilizing the global economy.
That’s the conclusion of UConn Business Law Professor Stephen Park and co-author Tim Samples, a professor at the University of Georgia, in their research article titled, “Towards Sovereign Equity,” which is pending publication in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business and Finance in 2016.Continue Reading
Ukraine’s Quietly Revolutionary Debt Restructuring
Financial Times – Ukraine’s debt restructuring plan, announced last month, is both revolutionary and evolutionary. The agreement to restructure $18bn of privately held government debt stands in stark contrast to Greece’s nearly apocalyptic showdown with the European Union this year and Argentina’s simmering standoff with holdout creditors.
Greece, Argentina Provide Model as Ukraine Considers GDP Linkers
BloombergBusiness – As debt talks intensify between Ukraine and its creditors, securities that pay out if economic growth exceeds expectations will probably be on the agenda, echoing deals done by Argentina and Greece in the past decade.