From: ContractsProfBlog
We begin our upcoming virtual symposium with this introduction provided by the authors of the book that we are subjecting to strict scrutiny, Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl E. Schneider.
MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure
When he famously wrote 100 years ago, “Sunlight is the best of disinfectants,” Justice Louis Brandeis began a century of disclosure law. How do we protect borrowers and investors? Disclosure! How do we help patients choose safe treatments and good health plans? Disclosure! How do we regulate websites’ privacy policies? Disclosure!
In area after area, mandated disclosure is lawmakers’ favorite way to protect people facing unfamiliar challenges. Truth in lending laws, informed consent, food labeling, conflicts-of-interests regulation, even Miranda warnings, all arose because lawmakers rightly worried that uninformed and inexperienced people might make disastrous choices.
Brandeis was wrong. True, these laws have a worthy goal – equipping us to make better decisions. But in sector after sector, studies steadily show that mandated disclosure has been almost as useless as it is ubiquitous. Financial crises have bred mandates for decades — the Securities Act of 1933, truth-in-lending laws in the 60s and 70s, Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, and, after the 2008 crisis, the Dodd-Frank Act. But each new crisis occurred despite the old elaborate disclosure requirements.
In our new book MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure, we explain that mandated disclosure has become the regulatory default. It is politically easy for legislatures and convenient for courts.
