Editor's Corner: Accountability

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ablj.12032
• Author: Marisa Anne Pagnattaro
• Published date: 01 September 2014
• Date: 01 September 2014

Editor’s Corner: Accountability

Because a body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted

by anybody.1

All of the articles in this volume all address an aspect of accountability.

Although there are still reverberations from the subprime mortgage crisis

and the ensuing financial meltdown, it is inexplicable to many why there

have been no significant criminal prosecutions of those who were respon-

sible. In their article, “Crime and Punishment (or the Lack Thereof ) for

Financial Fraud in the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown: Reasons and Rem-

edies for Legal and Ethical Lapses,” Don Mayer, Anita Cava, and Catharyn

Baird grapple with the political and regulatory landscape surrounding the

fraud. This article delves deep into the behavior that led to a global

financial crisis. Believing that accountability is a moral and legal impera-

tive, these authors make important recommendations with the goal being

to prevent another debacle and make prosecution of high-level financial

fraud more likely.

In “The First Amendment and Disclosure Regulations: Compelled

Speech or Corporate Opportunism?” Lucien J. Dhooge considers the

conflict between government regulations requiring disclosure and corpo-

rate resistance to reporting certain kinds of information. To create more

transparency, laws regulating the financial industry such as the Dodd-

Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank),

have been passed. The intent of such measures has been to ensure mean-

ingful disclosure, yet judicial challenges abound. Many of these challenges

are from various corporations and trade associations. Focusing on the

protections afforded by the First Amendment, Dhooge analyzes these

challenges, considering whether they are merely corporate opportunism

or principled arguments rooted in First Amendment jurisprudence. Much

is at stake in these cases, some of which address complex issues of meat

1THOMAS PAINE,RIGHTS OF MAN, Part I (1792).

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