Interesting Reads Archive

Some interesting legal reads for the week of December 8, 2014:

• Morrison & Foerster on a study of Rule 506(c) offerings (generally solicited) vs. traditional 506(b) offerings, finding among other things that in the former case, it is less likely that investment funds have been committed at the time of filing.
• From Entrepreneur magazine, a list of 25 business podcasts for entrepreneurs.
• From Business 2 Community, some pitfalls in naming your business.
• From The New Yorker, a focus on studies showing that open office plans are not helpful.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of November 24, 2014:

• From Entrepreneur magazine, an interesting business model for loans to startups:  the loan is conditioned on 25% of the loan amount being raised by friends and family of the founders.
• The Wall Street Journal on a U.S. Department of Labor crackdown on inflated valuations for employee-stock-ownership plans (ESOPs).
• Good practical advice from Bloomberg BusinessWeek about when separate businesses should be run through separate entities.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of November 17, 2014:

• A New York Times profile on next steps for entrepreneurs after a successful company sale.
• Also from the New York Times, some thoughts on power-sharing co-C.E.O. arrangements.
• From Bloomberg, a report on Tesla founder Elon Musk and others backing crowdfunding efforts in the clean-tech industry.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of November 10, 2014:

• A DealBook profile of Lendoor, a new crowdfunding vehicle for small business lending.
• Crain’s New York on a sharp increase in self-employment in the New York area over the past decade.
• The Wall Street Journal on the implications of possible changes to the accredited investor definition.
• WSJ’s LawBlog on insurance for startups providing coverage against IP suits.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of October 20, 2014:

• DealBook on a trend in private equity to open investments to individual investors, not just institutional investors, though there are still relatively high minimum investments and investible asset requirements.
• Also from DealBook, corporate spinoffs tend to work out well for both the company being spun off and the former parent company.
• The WSJ’s Private Equity Beat on corporate acquirers gobbling up smaller (sub-$50 million) companies.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of October 6, 2014:

• A case study of how celebrity endorsement can be used as general solicitation in an all-accredited investor offering under new Rule 506(c).
• Also on the topic of Rule 506(c), some data about who is using the new rules, from Morrison & Foerster
• A blog post from Cooley on how a new SEC CDI on how companies can use computer IP addresses to confirm that an offering is intrastate may not be workable.
• From Joseph E. Bachelder III, a history of how stock options have been used and some reasons why they’ve somewhat fallen out of favor.

Some interesting legal reads for the week of September 22, 2014:

• An entertaining look by the WSJ at SEC comment letters on public company filings.
• From Morrison & Foerster, a chart summarizing the current status of state-level (intrastate) crowdfunding initiatives.
• Sheppard Mullin on a proposal by NASDAQ to replace various separate listing fees with an all-inclusive annual listing fee, covering just about everything.  Probably inspired by a NASDAQ executive’s vacation at an all-inclusive beach resort.

• The SEC named its first ombudsman to the agency.
• DealBook on how start-ups are taking more money from VC funds than they may need right now.
• Also from DealBook, going-private transactions have been few and far between recently, possibly because of lofty stock market valuations.
• An on-target WSJ Accelerator blog critique of the angel investment reality show “Shark Tank.”
• WSJ’s Law Blog on corporations increasingly letting their in-house attorneys handle mid-level deals, at the expense of outside counsel.
• A study of public companies indicates that smaller boards produce better returns for investors.

• Morrison & Foerster on the continuing delay in the SEC’s finalization of the crowdfunding rules.  And Joe Wallin on the issues with relying on intrastate exemptions in the absence of action from the SEC.
• An investor alert from the SEC about fraudulent unregistered offerings.
• A Slate article about the recent reversal of a trend of high-scoring LSAT takers not applying to law school.

• From Keith Higgins, the SEC’s Director of the Division of Corporation Finance, some testimony to a Congressional subcommittee on the state of the various rule-making initiatives.  And here is Jim Hamilton’s summary of the subsequent questioning of Higgins by the subcommittee.
• Some behind-the-scenes detail on the interplay between federal and state crowdfunding initiatives, from Samuel Guzik.
• A law firm announced a drone law practice group.  Hopefully for the group’s sake, it will last longer than other news headline-triggered practice groups, like the Y2K groups that were all the rage in the late 1990s.
• Knicks star Carmelo Anthony launches a venture fund.