Howell Jackson

The Trump administration quietly took around $10 billion from a fund meant to help hospitals and health care providers affected by Covid-19 and used the money to bankroll Operation Warp Speed contracts, four former Trump administration officials told STAT. The Department of Health and Human Services appears to have used a financial maneuver that allowed officials to spend the money without telling Congress, and the agency got permission from its top lawyer to do so. Now, the Biden administration is refusing to say whether the outlay means there will be less money available for hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, and other providers...But several attorneys said HHS officials likely had wiggle room in the language of the Covid-19 relief bills to spend funds on Operation Warp Speed contracts. Lawmakers gave HHS broad authority to decide how to distribute money in the Provider Relief Fund, though so far the publicly announced grants have gone to more traditionally defined health care providers. Ted Waters, a managing partner at Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell, said courts generally defer to expert federal agency interpretation on use of funds unless there’s a clear conflict. A supportive HHS Office of the General Counsel opinion could help protect individuals from liability, said Harvard Law School professor and federal budget expert Howell Jackson.

The VERIFY team fact-checked what Joe Biden and other speakers said during the final night of the DNC. …  Claim:  Biden said “He’s (President Donald…

On Aug. 8, President Donald Trump signed numerous executive orders, meant to address the economic crisis caused by coronavirus. The political background to the move was a stalled negotiation process in Congress, where Democrats and Republicans have so far been unable to come to an agreement. The Verify team is addressing three big questions relating to the executive order deferring payroll taxes through the end of the year, including how the order could impact the Social Security fund...Will people receive larger paychecks, starting in September, as a result of the executive order? This depends on where someone works, according to Howell Jackson, a Law Professor at Harvard University. Some companies will decide to pay their workers what is no longer collected in taxes. Others may choose to hold on to the extra revenue, in case it needs to be repaid to the federal government in January.  "If you are sitting in an HR department, you’re talking to your attorneys about what to do," Jackson said. "This conversation is probably happening in 100,000 places today.” Will the executive order impact the Social Security fund? This remains unclear. Payroll taxes do go to programs such as Social Security and Medicare, thus a gap in funding could impact available funds. However, since this is a deferral, the money should presumably make its way to the fund eventually.  This question would become even more complicated if the federal government decided to forgive the tax, as suggested by President Trump at a recent press conference. This type of action can only be authorized by Congress. "If the payroll taxes are never paid into social security that will weaken the trust fund," Jackson said. "It won’t hurt benefits immediately. But in 10 to 12 years' time, it could have an impact.”

Toast Inc. achieved a $2.7 billion valuation this year by making software used by tens of thousands of restaurants. Now, data the Boston company has collected about those restaurants could yield new revenue. The company is launching a program called Toast Capital that will allow select clients to borrow as much as $250,000 for kitchen equipment, renovations or other expenses. In an example of how information can become currency in the digital age, Toast plans to earn interest on the loans without putting up its own money. Instead, a business partner -- Utah-based WebBank -- will provide the financing. The contribution from Toast, whose software powers sales and payroll transactions, will be insight into the famously tough restaurant industry — insight that may help predict which prospective borrowers would succeed enough to pay back their loans and which would default...Mary Zeven, director of the graduate program in banking and financial law at Boston University School of Law, said "partnering with a Utah bank, where Utah has loose restrictions on usury, will allow higher interest rates than a Massachusetts bank." Howell Jackson, a Harvard Law School professor who specializes in financial regulation and consumer protection, added that it is "common practice" for companies running lending programs to partner with Utah banks for this reason.

... Recently, in order to achieve wide exposure to public equity markets, Harvard Management Company (HMC) has come to rely increasingly on pooled investments and commingled funds typically managed by outside investment firms, rather than directly owning stock in individual companies. This has led to a review of ACSR’s [Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility] role and as a result, going forward, the committee will focus on developing guidelines that can help inform Harvard’s external investment managers, and other interested investors, as they vote on a broad array of shareholder resolutions. ... The Gazette recently sat down with outgoing ACSR Chair Howell Jackson, the James S. Reid Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, to better understand some of these changes, and to get a sense of how the ACSR fulfills its role.

Many faculty members at HLS focus their research on aspects of consumer law and protection.

Harvard’s investment decisions often grab headlines. Protesters have blockaded administrative buildings and staged sit-ins in downtown Boston to oppose the University’s investments in fossil fuels and private prisons. And University President Drew G. Faust has publicly opined on whether or not it is wise to divest from controversial assets. Meanwhile, two University committees routinely make a set of less visible—yet ethically challenging—decisions about how to act as a shareholder in its existing investments. At the meetings of these committees, Harvard takes public stances on issues ranging from climate change to the rights of indigenous people in its capacity as a shareholder...Howell E. Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School and the chair of the ACSR, said the committee carefully researches and deliberates on every proposal it considers. “There is actually a huge amount of background reading,” Jackson said. Once the ACSR makes recommendations about each proxy vote, it sends them to the CCSR, which Jackson said has a tradition of “overwhelmingly following” the ACSR’s recommendations.

Money to keep the U.S. government up and running could be about to run out — again. As of Thursday, Congress still hasn’t reached an agreement on passing the 12 appropriation bills that the provide annual budget, and its third extension on making that decision is about to expire on Friday...During the Carter administration, Congress couldn’t pass the budget on time, and President Carter asked Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti how that would affect the management of the federal bureaucracy. Civiletti returned with a legal opinion on the Anti-Deficiency Act of 1870...Over time, however, enforcement of the law grew lax...Then, in an April 1980 opinion, Civiletti wrote that there is no gray area on this issue. The opinion didn’t overrule any longstanding precedent, Howell Jackson, professor at Harvard Law School, tells TIME, but it still made a big difference.

Employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau returned to work after Thanksgiving break Monday to an unusual scenario: They had two bosses, separated by an ideological gulf, who were battling in court to lead them. In what could have made a decent reality TV plot dreamed up by Donald Trump in his previous jobs on the small screen, the president dispatched his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, to take control of the independent agency as acting head after the departure of its former chief, Richard Cordray. But Cordray’s handpicked successor, Leandra English, the bureau’s former deputy director, was not giving up the reins and went to court Sunday night to block Trump’s move...Harvard law professor Howell Jackson, who worked for two years at the bureau as a visiting scholar, said both legal arguments on who can appoint a successor could be considered credible. But until a final determination is made in court, Jackson said, the agency’s work will be disrupted. “I’m sure it’s confusing for the people who work there,” he said. “And it will complicate any actions that are taken until the controversy resolves.”

A corrosive custom forced on investors is finally getting the ax under new regulations in Europe. Too bad some on Wall Street are working overtime to ensure that United States investors don’t get the same deal. The rule change governs how investors pay for brokerage-firm research...Howell E. Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert in financial regulation, thinks the unbundling of trading and research costs would be a boon to investors because of the sunlight it would bring to the financial markets. Under the European rule, Mr. Jackson said in an interview, “consumers can see how much of their commissions are going to research.”

The US investment regulator’s powers to recoup losses from financial advisers who break the law were dealt a blow by a landmark Supreme Court decision this summer. But the Securities and Exchange Commission has stressed to the FT that the court’s decision will have a limited impact on its ability to go after wrongdoers...Several legal experts have claimed the case puts the regulator at a considerable disadvantage when seeking redress. “The decision clearly imposes a limit on SEC enforcement powers and may force the staff to rely more on civil money penalties,” says Howell Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School.

A Democratic watchdog group is accusing President Trump's top environmental law enforcer of misusing funds to rail against the Paris climate agreement. In a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent Thursday, the American Democracy Legal Fund said Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, one of the Trump administration's most outspoken critics of the climate deal, violated an obscure grassroots-lobbying law called the Antideficiency Act, which bars federal agencies from spending federal money before it has been appropriated by Congress (or in excess of such funds)...The issues raised in the letter "will likely, in my view, be taken seriously by the comptroller general and his staff," said Howell E. Jackson, a law professor and expert on federal budget policy at Harvard, referring to GAO head Gene L. Dodaro.

In November, the newly installed Wells Fargo chief executive, Timothy J. Sloan, told employees that retaliation against whistle-blowers would “not be tolerated at Wells Fargo.”...Last month, Wells Fargo released a long-awaited independent investigation into the scandal, conducted with the assistance of the law firm Shearman & Sterling. The subject of whistle-blowers and how they were treated was relegated to a footnote in the 110-page report. “That’s a red flag in itself,” said Howell E. Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School and a visiting scholar at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “It’s buried on Page 87. My concern is whether whistle-blowers were handled properly and to what degree the board bears responsibility. You don’t find any answers in this mumbo-jumbo.”

The shareholder vote against Wells Fargo directors on Tuesday was larger than anything seen at a big US bank during the financial crisis — but without Warren Buffett’s help the rebellion would have been even bigger. For four board members, only the support of the billionaire investor’s Berkshire Hathaway prevented them from being removed from office in the wake of the bank’s bogus accounts debacle...“There is a serious question as to whether any of the directors who received less than 60 per cent of the vote can stay on,” said Howell Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School.

A letter by Howell Jackson and Christopher Healy '17.  Re “Student Debt Past Age 50” (editorial, Feb. 13): As your editorial rightly laments, senior citizens are increasingly finding themselves in default on student loans. These defaults can lead to the garnishment of Social Security benefits, pushing many elderly toward poverty. The garnishment of Social Security benefits is particularly unfair to today’s retirees because until the mid-1990s Social Security benefits were fully exempt from such levies. So, for much of their working lives, many seniors could not reasonably have anticipated that their Social Security retirement benefits would become susceptible to garnishment.

Harvard supported shareholder proposals calling on corporations to be more transparent about political contributions and internal environmental benchmarks, among other issues, according to a report on shareholder responsibility released Wednesday...An advisory committee—a 12-member panel of faculty, students, and alumni—first considers each proposal before presenting its recommendation to the Corporation committee, whose four members cast votes to determine Harvard’s position...Harvard Law School professor Howell E. Jackson chaired the advisory committee.