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Full-Text Articles in Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics
Misreading Menetti: The Case Does Not Help You Avoid Liability For Your Own Fraud, Val D. Ricks
Misreading Menetti: The Case Does Not Help You Avoid Liability For Your Own Fraud, Val D. Ricks
St. Mary's Law Journal
Several decades ago, an incorrect legal idea surfaced in Texas jurisprudence: that business entity actors are immune from liability for fraud that they themselves commit, as if the entity is solely responsible. Though the Supreme Court of Texas has rejected that result several times, it keeps coming back. The most recent manifestation is as a construction of Texas’s unique veil-piercing statute. Many lawyers have suggested that this view of the veil-piercing statute originated in Menetti v. Chavers, a San Antonio Court of Appeals case decided in 1998. Menetti has in fact played a prominent role in the movement to …
Stealth Governance: Shareholder Agreements And Private Ordering, Jill E. Fisch
Stealth Governance: Shareholder Agreements And Private Ordering, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
Corporate law has embraced private ordering -- tailoring a firm’s corporate governance to meet its individual needs. Firms are increasingly adopting firm-specific governance through dual-class voting structures, forum selection provisions and tailored limitations on the duty of loyalty. Courts have accepted these provisions as consistent with the contractual theory of the firm, and statutes, in many cases, explicitly endorse their use. Commentators too support private ordering for its capacity to facilitate innovation and enhance efficiency.
Private ordering typically occurs through firm-specific charter and bylaw provisions. VC-funded startups, however, frequently use an alternative tool – shareholder agreements. These agreements, which have …