Producing Information: Initial Public Offerings, Production Costs, and the Producing Lawyer
40 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2010
Date Written: 1995
Abstract
This article argues that securities lawyers help reduce transactional complexity in initial public offerings by acting as informational intermediaries. The complexity of IPOs is due to three principal factors. First, IPOs involve large number of parties – managers, accountants, underwriters, lawyers, regulators, outside experts, such as engineers, and the ultimate purchasers of the shares. Second, in order to comply with the disclosure and due diligence requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, the parties will need to identify, transfer, process, and verify large amounts of information. Third, each participant approaches this information production process using their own domain-specific languages and verification techniques. Securities lawyers coordinate the revelation, verification, and translation of domain-specific information and knowledge, and create value by reducing translation errors and informational gaps that can lead to bargaining breakdowns and faulty or incomplete disclosures.
Keywords: Securities Act of 1933, initial public offering, transaction costs, informational asymmetries
JEL Classification: K22, G34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation