Bite-Sized Business Law
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Get a breakdown of the top stories in business law from industry leaders on the front lines with Bite-Sized Business Law. Host Amy Martella takes a closer look at the latest corporate happenings through interviews with the attorneys, legal experts, public figures, and scholars behind the news to distill business law’s biggest stories into bite-sized portions.
This is your chance to go further into the world of business law and stay up to date with legal cases and industry trends.
Corporations impact us all, leading changes that extend far beyond business to shape the economy, public policy, technology, and beyond. Looking at the big picture, Amy discusses not only the underlying issues in business ethics and legal cases leading the biggest stories but also sparks thought-provoking discussions on where the law should be headed.
Amy is the Executive Director of the Corporate Law Center at Fordham University School of Law. Her background ranges from big law to government to tech startups, allowing her to offer an insider’s perspective of the issues that shape corporate actions, large and small. Covering crypto regulation to securities fraud, AI’s impact to Elon Musk’s pay package, Bite-Sized Business Law covers it all with guests of varying viewpoints to provide the nuanced analysis needed to tackle complex problems.
Whether you're looking for the latest in legal insight on intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, business ethics or legal cases in the business law world, you’ll find it here. Enjoying a thoughtful perspective on the news stories of the moment, Bite-Sized Business Law examines big issues and delivers them in small doses.
Bite-Sized Business Law is a project by the Corporate Law Center at Fordham Law. The Center serves as a hub for scholars, professionals, policymakers, and students to engage in the study, discussion, and debate of current issues in corporate law. The Center focuses on aspects of corporate law, corporate compliance, antitrust law, and securities regulation. Through initiatives like the Mergers and Acquisitions seminar and the Securities Litigation and Arbitration Clinic, students actively engage in real-world research and cases, bridging the gap between classroom learning and practical application in the legal field.
Bite-Sized Business Law
Maria Charon on SPACs
The rise and fall of SPACs, or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, is a trending topic in legal and financial conversations. Why were they so attractive, and what caused some to come grinding to a halt? Today we talk about what the heck happened to SPACs! Here with us on the Bite Sized Business Law Podcast is Maria Charon. She is a corporate lawyer who started her career at renowned Wall Street law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. Most recently, Maria has been part of a SPAC management group. Maria talks us through what a SPAC is, why they’re seemingly attractive, and what a de-SPAC merger is. She shares specifics on how SPACs function, what investors can expect, and we speculate on the effects of pending regulations from the SEC. We discuss the similarities of the SPAC trend with other past trends like the dot-com bubble and the crypto-craze and the future of the SPAC market. For all this, and more, don’t miss this informative conversation with Maria Charon.
Key Points From This Episode:
- A quick introduction to our guest, Maria Charon.
- A definition for ‘SPAC’ which can also be referred to as a Blank Check Company.
- Maria explains why SPACs were so attractive when they first “came on the scene.”
- What a de-SPAC merger is.
- How to gain enough information to discern whether to invest or not.
- How SPAC investors can redeem their investments.
- Why SPACs came to a grinding halt.
- How the threat of regulation affected the SPAC market.
- What happens to failed SPACs.
- Maria explains more about SPAC sponsors and their roles.
- We compare the SPAC trend with other past trends (dot-com bubble and crypto-craze).
- How a good economy engenders a highly speculative instrument like a SPAC.
- The future of SPACs.
- Comparing SPACs to the IPO model.
- The nature of SPACs and the relationship between sponsor groups and retail investors.
- Why SPACs were attractive to non-accredited investors.
- What the next hot asset class could be, according to Maria.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: