In Taming the Megabanks, Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr. argues that we must break up universal banks by enacting a new Glass-Steagall Act. Drawing from an analysis of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09, Wilmarth demonstrates that a new Glass-Steagall Act would make our financial system much more stable and less likely to produce boom-and-bust cycles.

Lobbyist, White House Lawyer, and Senate Aide on the Power of America’s Plutocracy to Avoid Prosecution and Subvert Financial Reform Beginning in January 2009, THE PAYOFF lays bare Washington’s culture of power and plutocracy. It’s the story of the twenty-month struggle by Senator Ted Kaufman and Jeff Connaughton, his chief of staff, to hold Wall Street executives accountable for securities fraud, to stop stock manipulation by high-frequency traders, and to break up too-big-to-fail megabanks. This book takes us inside their dogged crusade against institutional inertia and industry influence as they encounter an outright reluctance by the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to treat Wall Street crimes with the gravity they deserve. On financial reforms, Connaughton criticizes Democrats for relying on the very Wall Street technocrats who had failed to prevent the crisis and Republicans for staunchly opposing real reforms primarily to enjoy a golden opportunity to siphon fundraising dollars from the Wall Street executives who had raised millions to elect Barack Obama president. Connaughton, a former lawyer in the Clinton White House, illuminates the pivotal moments and key decisions in the fight for financial reform that have gone largely unreported. His arch, nonpartisan account chronicles the reasons why Wall Street’s worst offenses were left unpunished, and why it’s likely that the 2008 debacle will happen again.

China's Banking Transformation describes the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese banking system based on the author's 12 years serving on two Chinese bank boards. Acknowledging the challenges banks face, the book challenges conventional views, maintaining that China's banks now function well within China's market socialist political economy, and within China's traditional collectivist cultural world.

Global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are the largest, most complex and, in the event of their potential failure, most threatening banking institutions in the world. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was a turning point for G-SIBs, many of which contributed to the outbreak and severity of this downturn. The unfolding of the GFC also revealed flaws and omissions in the legal framework applying to financial entities. In the context of G-SIBs, it clearly demonstrated that the legal regimes, both in the USA and in the EU, grossly ignored the specific character of these institutions and their systemic importance, complexity, and individualism. As a result of this omission, these megabanks were long treated like any other smaller banking institutions. Since the GFC, legal systems have changed a lot on both sides of the Atlantic, and global and national lawmakers have adopted new rules applying specifically to G-SIBs to reduce their threat to financial stability. This book explores whether the G-SIB-specific regulatory frameworks are adequately tailored to their individualism in order to prevent them from exploiting overly general rules, as they did during the GFC. Analyzing the specific character and individualism of G-SIBs, in relation to their history, normal functioning, as well as their operations during the GFC, this book discusses transformation of banking systems and the challenges and opportunities G-SIBs face, such as Big Tech competitors, climate-related requirements, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking a multidisciplinary approach which combines financial aspects of operations of G- SIBs and legal analysis, the book describes G-SIB-oriented legal frameworks of the EU and the USA and assesses whether G-SIB individualism is adequately reflected, analyzing trends in supervisory action when it comes to discretion in the G-SIB context, all in order to contribute to the ongoing discussions about international banking law, its problems, and potential remedies to such persistent flaws.

This comprehensive book begins with a consideration of the nature of the general banker-customer relationship, the obligations it poses and the issues relating to the commencement of the banking relationship. It provides individuals and companies with valuable guidance when assessing the risks in their relationship with banks, and vice versa. The following chapters allow all parties to consider carefully the central issues and underlying general principles that might arise by addressing the various activities undertaken by a lender. The duty of confidentiality, lenders as fiduciaries, the lender's duty to advise borrowers on the imprudence of transactions as well as fraud, and banks as constructive trustees and damages for breach of contract by a lender are all considered. The final chapters explore the duties of security holders and mortgagees of land, the liability of lenders for receivers they appoint, environmental liability and lender liability as shadow directors concerning wrongful trading. The book outlines liability in negligence and contract, with specific reference to existing case law concerning banks in this field from an English law perspective, and also Scottish and Commonwealth law, thus providing valuable applicability to the banking context for practitioners in other fields.

Following the catastrophic events of the 2008 global financial crisis, an anonymous hacker released Bitcoin to claw back power from commercial and central banks. It quickly garnered an enthusiastic following who sought to forge a stable and democratic global economy--a world free from hierarchy and control. In their eyes, Bitcoin's underlying architecture, blockchain, hailed the dawn of decentralisation. Money Code Space shatters these emancipatory claims. In their place, Jack Parkin constructs a new framework for revealing the geographies of power that lie behind blockchain networks. Drawing on first-hand experience in cryptocurrency communities and start-up companies from Silicon Valley to London, Parkin untangles the complex web of culture, politics, and economics that truly drive decentralisation.

Examining the subject from a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective, Principles of Financial Regulation considers the underlying policies and the objectives of financial regulation.