The rapid growth in derivatives as hedging instruments, particularly through equity swaps, credit default swaps and loan credit default swaps, has challenged fundamental assumptions underlying corporate, federal shareholder disclosure and bankruptcy law. In the attached memorandum, our colleagues Jon Kibbe, Brian S. Fraser, Michael Friedman, H. Rowan Gaither IV and Julia Lu discuss the recent phenomena of "equity decoupling" and "debt decoupling" through the use of derivatives and the challenges equity and debt decoupling pose for today's business environment.