THE SOCIETY OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
Friday and Saturday, October 26-27, 2007
The St. John’s University School of Law
Ronald J. Colombo
Associate Professor of Law
Hofstra University
School of Law
121 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549
Ph: (516) 463-5931
Fax: (516) 463-4962
Professor Colombo teaches Contracts, Securities Regulation, and Business Organizations. His research focuses primarily on corporate and securities law and, more specifically, the application of non-economic principles and norms to these fields.
Before joining the Hofstra faculty in 2006, Professor Colombo served in the Complex Global Litigation Group of Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc., as vice president and counsel. In this position, Professor Colombo supervised investigations, litigations, and regulatory inquiries affecting Morgan Stanley's investment banking franchise. Prior to that, Professor Colombo practiced as a litigation associate at the New York office of Sullivan & Cromwell, where, among other things, he represented corporate and banking clients in civil and criminal investigations conducted by the S.E.C., the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the Federal Reserve Bank; in matters before state courts, federal courts, and arbitration panels; and in appeals before the Third Circuit, the D.C. Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. From 2000-2003, Professor Colombo also served on the Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Professor Colombo graduated, magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law. At NYU, Professor Colombo served as a note and development editor of the NYU Law Review, published a note on the clergy-penitent evidentiary privilege, interned at the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn, NY, and was elected to the Order of the Coif. Immediately following graduation, Professor Colombo clerked for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Analyst Fraud from Economic and Natural Law Perspectives
By Ronald J. Colombo
Abstract: Investor protection and healthy capital markets are commonly acknowledged as the objectives historically driving U.S. federal securities legislation and policy. Less commonly appreciated, or perhaps intentionally neglected, is the critical role that virtue was understood to play in realizing these objectives by the architects and original enforcers of the securities laws. This understanding has largely been lost, in no small part, due to the success that “law and economics” has had in dominating securities law thinking. This Article posits that this original understanding can be rediscovered, and the role of virtue restored to its rightful place in securities regulation, via application of a natural law approach to securities law issues. Within the context of the recent research analyst conflict-of-interest problem, this Article compares a natural law approach to the problem with a law and economics approach. The conclusion reached is that the natural law approach is preferable on account of its endorsement of solutions that are more comprehensive, and, moreover, more harmonious with the historical values and objectives of U.S. securities law.