blue sky law
- noun
- /blu skaɪ lɔ/
- Formal
:
ley de cielo azul
- Under the state's blue sky laws, all securities must be registered before they can be sold to the public.
Examples
-
The rise of government agencies to assess corporate value reporting paralleled these changes, first under state "blue sky" laws and later in the federal securities statutes.
Academic text (2017) -
Rediker's partner, Thomas L. Krebs, is intimately familiar with Alabama's blue sky laws.
Academic text (2004) -
Alabama has strict blue sky laws that prevent fraudulent investment schemes.
-
Investors should be aware of blue sky laws, which protect them from deceptive securities sales.
Synonyms
3
6.0
Rules about how companies sell or issue stocks and bonds
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a state law regulating the sale of securities' cannot be derived from the literal constituents 'blue' + 'sky' + 'law' — a B1 learner would more likely assume a law about the sky or something blue rather than securities regulation. 'Blue sky' here is a historical/legal metaphor and specialist jargon specific to U.S. securities law, so the expression is idiomatic and unpredictable from its parts.
Etymology
Blue sky law comes from old stories about tricksters who sold worthless things and even sold the empty blue sky itself. States made these laws 'to stop scams' where people were sold fake investments, so today a blue sky law is a state rule that protects people who buy stocks from being cheated.