News about the Business Law Program or news about faculty or students that relates to business law
The requirement that individuals withdraw required minimum distribution amounts, as specified in the SECURE 2.0 Act, requires women to withdraw more than theirgender-specific life expectancy would otherwise require. This is the conclusion of Professor Richard Kaplan in a new article published in the Pittsburgh Tax Review. The paper was originally presented at an ABA-sponsored conference […]
When a law is inconsistent, further guidance should come from Congress, courts, and administrative agencies to create clarity. In her recent article, Professor Sarah Lawsky examines via a programming language framework an example of a tax statute that mandates inconsistent outcomes for the same set of facts and shows how that inconsistency has been addressed […]
The Department of Labor recently announced it would no longer prioritize investigations and enforcement actions against employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). The Capitol Forum account of this policy change notes the regulatory concerns this announcement raises and quotes Professor Sean Anderson extensively. “Some actors in the ESOP industry will be incentivized to be less careful […]
Direct File, a program that allows some taxpayers to file federal income tax returns with the United States government online for free, is an extraordinary accomplishment, Professor Sarah Lawsky writes in a new article published in the Pittsburgh Tax Review. Examining the computer code underlying Direct File, Lawsky finds choices that make “the application of […]
A new co-authored essay from Professors Jennifer Robbennolt and Verity Winship will be published in the FSU Business Review, as part of the 2026 Symposium on Behavioral Perspectives on Corporate Law. The essay is titled “From Tweets to Testimony: A Case Study of Apologies After the FTX Collapse,” and the abstract follows: In the wake […]
Professor Ralph Brubaker published a new article on SSRN, titled “The Erie Doctrine, Code Common Law, and Choice-of-Law Rules in Bankruptcy.” The article was also featured in the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable. Read the full article at ssrn.com.
Professor Sarah Lawsky, along with co-author Leandra Lederman, published the paper “Constructing Deductions” on SSRN.com. The abstract follows: This Essay identifies drafting “building blocks” that are present in the Internal Revenue Code and that are used to construct many of the deductions available to individuals. The Essay represents these building blocks using mathematical formulas and […]
After struggling financially for years and failing to secure a government bailout, Spirit Airlines announced that it would begin the process of shutting down in early May. Investors were strongly opposed to the government bailout, especially those that had made Spirit debtor-in-possession loans. Such loans have high interest rates, and the investors who own them […]
According to the New York Sun, President Trump suggested during remarks at a private luncheon that the federal government may no longer support essential care programs and that states should instead rely on state-level funding to do so. Professor and tax law expert Richard Kaplan says that the president’s remarks about Medicare, in particular, rest […]
As consumer bankruptcy filings continue to rise, the role of arbitration has also increased. Because the Federal Arbitration Act and the US bankruptcy code can be at odds with each other and that tension has not yet been tested by the Supreme Court, experts expect that the matter will eventually make its way there. Professor […]