Corporate First Amendment Rights and the SEC

Subjects:

• Law » Law (General)

Reviews:

• Wolfson . . . challenges the main argument the justices have made to give less protection to commercial speech, the most important of which is the claim that the latter's truth or falsity is 'more verifiable' than the truth of political speech. . . . In contrast, the professor argues that the line between commercial speech and political speech is impossible to draw. . . . Wolfson offers plenty of evidence to show that SEC censorship does more harm than good. He likens battles for control of corporations to corporate democracy. . . . We can be grateful that bureaucrats haven't found a way to ban the good Prof. Wolfson from voicing his cogent opinions about how the Constitution is supposed to protect markets and ban censorship.
  —
  L. Gordon Crovitz
  
  
  Barron's
  
• The author offers a critique of the regulation of corporate speech and examines the SEC's powers in the control of corporate information, arguing that the Supreme Court's distinction between political-artistic speech and corporate speech is erroneous. He delineates the doctrine of commercial speech and outlines the court cases that have determined the status of SEC speech. There is an analysis of the law and economics literature on commercial speech.
  —Business Information ALERT

• Endorsement From George W. Bermant Gibson,
  
  
  Dunn & Crutcher Lawyers: [Wolfson's] book will be an invaluable resource for all who believe in the First Amendment and in defending corporations, investors, and critics from governmental (in this case the SEC) determination of economic orthodoxy and bounds of permitted comment. In addition to being an excellent sourcebook, it is written in a sprightly and fascinating style. It is fun to read.
• Endorsement From Tom Gerety
  
  
  President
  
  
  Trinity College: Wolfson is at once fair, searching, and bold. His conclusion, like his analysis, is radical. No one who cares about free speech or regulation of security in America can disregard this definitive study.
• Endorsement From Ward S. Curran
  
  
  George M. Ferris Professor of
  
  
  Corporation Finance and Investment
  
  : Anyone interested in the scholarship underlying first Amendment issues will find this book provocative,...informative, and required reading.
• Endorsement From
  Henry N. Butler
  
  
  Director, Law and Economics Center
  
  
  George Mason University
  
  
  School of Law: Professor Nicholas Wolfson uses numerous cases and sound theoretical analysis to expose the false dichotomy and mindless ambiguity of the commercial speech doctrine.
• Endorsement From Henry G. Manne
  
  
  Dean, School of Law
  
  
  George Mason University: Professor Wolfson's book is one of those rare scholarly works that pushes a legal proposition to its fundamental logical limits... It sets a high standard for how such difficult constitutional issues should be examined when regulatory law has become so complex that the usual approaches do not even reveal a problem. One can only hope that there will be other parallel investigations of the same high quality.
• Endorsement From Joseph A. Grundfest
  
  
  Assoc. Professor of Law
  
  
  Stanford Law School
  
  
  Former SEC Commissioner
  : Corporate First Amendment Rights and the SEC is a timely and provocative work that cuts to the heart of the SEC's role as a regulator of speech in the modern marketplace. . . . Whether you agree with Professor Wolfson's conclusions or not is beside the point, because this book will likely challenge preconceived notions and induce you to look at the world just a bit differently than before.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Commercial Speech Doctrine
• SEC Speech
• Scholarly Evaluation of the Commercial Speech Doctrine
• Economic Theory, Free Speech, and the SEC
• The First Amendment and the SEC
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index