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Articles 1 - 30 of 44
Full-Text Articles in Law
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 …
The Supreme Court And The Pro-Business Paradox, Elizabeth Pollman
The Supreme Court And The Pro-Business Paradox, Elizabeth Pollman
All Faculty Scholarship
One of the most notable trends of the Roberts Court is expanding corporate rights and narrowing liability or access to justice against corporate defendants. This Comment examines recent Supreme Court cases to highlight this “pro-business” pattern as well as its contradictory relationship with counter trends in corporate law and governance. From Citizens United to Americans for Prosperity, the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence could ironically lead to a situation in which it has protected corporate political spending based on a view of the corporation as an “association of citizens,” but allows constitutional scrutiny to block actual participants from getting information about …
Choice Of Law And The Preponderantly Multistate Rule: The Example Of Successor Corporation Products Liability, Diana Sclar
Choice Of Law And The Preponderantly Multistate Rule: The Example Of Successor Corporation Products Liability, Diana Sclar
Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)
Most state rules of substantive law, whether legislative or judicial, ordinarily adjust rights and obligations among local parties with respect to local events. Conventional choice of law methodologies for adjudicating disputes with multistate connections all start from an explicit or implicit assumption of a choice between such locally oriented substantive rules. This article reveals, for the first time, that some state rules of substantive law ordinarily adjust rights and obligations with respect to parties and events connected to more than one state and only occasionally apply to wholly local matters. For these rules I use the term “nominally domestic rules …
Shareholder Collaboration, Jill E. Fisch, Simone M. Sepe
Shareholder Collaboration, Jill E. Fisch, Simone M. Sepe
All Faculty Scholarship
Two models of the firm dominate corporate law. Under the management-power model, decision-making power rests primarily with corporate insiders (officers and directors). The competing shareholder-power model defends increased shareholder power to limit managerial authority. Both models view insiders and shareholders as engaged in a competitive struggle for corporate power in which corporate law functions to promote operational efficiency while limiting managerial agency costs. As scholars and judges continue to debate the appropriate balance of power between shareholders and insiders, corporate practice has moved on. Increasingly, the insider–shareholder dynamic is collaborative, not competitive.
This Article traces the development of insider–shareholder collaboration, …
From Apathy To Activism: The Emergence, Impact, And Future Of Shareholder Activism As The New Corporate Governance Norm, Lisa M. Fairfax
From Apathy To Activism: The Emergence, Impact, And Future Of Shareholder Activism As The New Corporate Governance Norm, Lisa M. Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
The conventional and long-held view that public company shareholders are, and should be, rationally apathetic is waning. Today, public company shareholders are active. Such shareholders have actively sought to increase their voting power and influence over director elections and other important corporate matters. These shareholders not only have been voting, but they also have been voting against management preferences. Moreover, public company shareholders increasingly have begun to request, and in some instances demand, that corporate officers and directors engage with them around a range of issues. The shift away from shareholder apathy reflects a radical departure from the traditional corporate …
Corporate Criminal Liability: Toward A Compliance-Orientated Approach, Gustavo A. Jimenez
Corporate Criminal Liability: Toward A Compliance-Orientated Approach, Gustavo A. Jimenez
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies
Under U.S. federal law, a corporation can be held criminally liable for the crimes of its employees and agents. The Department of Justice's U.S. Attorneys' Manual lays out a list of factors prosecutors can evaluate when deciding whether or not to prosecute a corporate entity. The Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors have various tools at their disposal, including deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) and non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) as alternatives to going to trial. Prosecutors have used DPAs and NPAs in recent cases, allowing the government to ensure that corporate entities comply with investigations, enact compliance programs, and continue to follow laws …
Do Conflicts Of Interest Require Outside Boards? Yes. Bsps? Maybe., Usha Rodrigues
Do Conflicts Of Interest Require Outside Boards? Yes. Bsps? Maybe., Usha Rodrigues
Scholarly Works
From the Symposium: Outsourcing the Board: How Board Service Providers Can Improve Corporate Governance
Boards of directors are curious creatures. The law generally requires corporations to have them—indeed, they are the focus of the corporate law we teach in Business Associations in U.S. law schools. The corporation is managed by directors or under their direction; directors hire and fire officers; directors are necessary for fundamental transactions.
But the reason why corporations have directors is not entirely clear. In the prototypical privately held corporation, the family firm, the same individuals serve both as directors and officers. The CEO (better known as …
Amending Corporate Charters And Bylaws, Albert H. Choi, Geeyoung Min
Amending Corporate Charters And Bylaws, Albert H. Choi, Geeyoung Min
All Faculty Scholarship
Recently, courts have embraced the contractarian theory that corporate charters and bylaws constitute a “contract” between the shareholders and the corporation and have been more willing to uphold bylaws unilaterally adopted by the directors. This paper examines the contractarian theory by drawing a parallel between amending charters and bylaws, on the one hand, and amending contracts, on the other. In particular, the paper compares the right to unilaterally amend corporate bylaws with the right to unilaterally modify contract terms, and highlights how contract law imposes various limitations on the modifying party’s discretion. More generally, when the relationship of contracting parties …
Toward A Theory Of Shareholder Leverage, Lisa Fairfax
Toward A Theory Of Shareholder Leverage, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
On Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, 2014, the UCLA School of Law Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy sponsored a conference on competing theories of corporate governance.
Corporate law and economics scholarship initially relied mainly on agency cost and nexus of contracts models. In recent years, however, various scholars have built on those foundations to construct three competing models of corporate governance: director primacy, shareholder primacy, and team production.
The shareholder primacy model treats the board of directors as agents of the shareholders charged with maximizing shareholder wealth. Scholars such as Lucian Bebchuk working with this …
Separation Anxiety: A Cautious Endorsement Of The Independent Board Chair, Lisa Fairfax
Separation Anxiety: A Cautious Endorsement Of The Independent Board Chair, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article critically examines the competing arguments related to splitting the roles of CEO and board chair. Although the campaign for independent board chairs has received increased attention from shareholders and regulators, there has been very little academic analysis of such campaign. This Article seeks to fill this void not only by examining the campaign, but also by assessing its implications in light of the available empirical evidence and normative claims. Based on this assessment, this Article offers two conclusions. First, while there appear to be costs associated with splitting the roles of CEO and board chair, those costs likely …
A Difficult Conversation: Corporate Directors On Race And Gender, Kimberly D. Krawiec, John M. Conley, Lissa L. Broome
A Difficult Conversation: Corporate Directors On Race And Gender, Kimberly D. Krawiec, John M. Conley, Lissa L. Broome
Faculty Scholarship
This symposium essay summarizes our ongoing ethnographic research on corporate board diversity, discussing the central tension in our respondents’ views – their overwhelmingly enthusiastic support of board diversity coupled with an inability to articulate coherent accounts of board diversity benefits that might rationalize that enthusiasm. As their reactions make clear, frank dialogue about race and gender – even a seemingly benign discussion of diversity’s benefits – can be a difficult conversation.
Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz
Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz
Justin Schwartz
Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …
A Conflict Primacy Model Of The Public Board, Usha Rodrigues
A Conflict Primacy Model Of The Public Board, Usha Rodrigues
Scholarly Works
e board of directors is the theoretical fulcrum of the corporate form: Statutes task the board with managing the corporation. Yet in the twentieth century, CEOs and other executives came to dominate the real-world control of the corporation. In light of this transformation, in the 1970s Melvin E. Eisenberg proposed reconceiving the board as an independent monitor. Eisenberg’s monitoring board is now the dominant regulatory model of the board. Recently two different visions of the board of directors have emerged. Stephen Bainbridge’s “director primacy” model calls directors “Platonic guardians,” and Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s “team production model” characterizes them …
The Merits Of Cooperative Corporate Governance In The Digital Age, Meredith-Anne Kurz
The Merits Of Cooperative Corporate Governance In The Digital Age, Meredith-Anne Kurz
Meredith-Anne Kurz
No abstract provided.
Mandating Board-Shareholder Engagement?, Lisa Fairfax
Mandating Board-Shareholder Engagement?, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article not only argues that corporations must be encouraged to enhance the level of communication between shareholders and the board, but also maintains that the benefits of increased engagement are significant enough that we should consider developing standards for incentivizing, if not mandating, more robust board-shareholder engagement for corporations that fail to respond to such encouragement. In the last several years, shareholders not only have gained increased authority over corporate elections and governance matters, but also have demonstrated a willingness to use that authority to challenge, and even reject, management policies and practices. Shareholders also have begun to demand …
Sue On Pay: Say On Pay’S Impact On Directors’ Fiduciary Duties, Lisa Fairfax
Sue On Pay: Say On Pay’S Impact On Directors’ Fiduciary Duties, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article advances a normative case for using say on pay litigation to enhance the state courts’ role in policing directors’ compensation decisions. Outrage over what many perceive to be excessive executive compensation has escalated dramatically in recent years. In 2010, such outrage prompted Congress to mandate say on pay—a nonbinding shareholder vote on executive compensation. In the wake of say on pay votes, some shareholders have brought suit against directors alleging that a negative vote indicates a breach of directors’ fiduciary duties. To date, the vast majority of courts have rejected these suits. This Article insists that such rejection …
Managing Expectations: Does The Directors' Duty To Monitor Promise More Than It Can Deliver?, Lisa Fairfax
Managing Expectations: Does The Directors' Duty To Monitor Promise More Than It Can Deliver?, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This article grapples with whether we are expecting too much from the duty of oversight. The directors’ oversight duty refers to directors’ responsibility to actively monitor corporate officers, employees, and corporate affairs. Directors breach their oversight duty when officers and employees engage in wrongdoing that causes harm to the corporation and that wrongdoing can be attributed to directors’ failure to monitor. In other words, oversight liability holds directors liable for their failure to act under circumstances where it can be proven that directors should have acted and their actions could have prevented corporate harm.
The significance of directors’ oversight duty …
Where Did Mill Go Wrong? Why The Capital-Managed Rather Than The Labor-Managed Enterprise Is The Predominant Organizational Form In Market Economies, 73 Ohio State L.J. 219 (2012, Justin Schwartz
Justin Schwartz
In this Article, I propose a novel law and economics explanation of a deeply puzzling aspect of business organization in market economies. Why are virtually all firms organized as capital-managed and -owned (capitalist) enterprises rather than as labor-managed and -owned cooperatives? Over 150 years ago, J.S. Mill predicted that efficiency and other advantages would eventually make worker cooperatives predominant over capitalist firms. Mill was right about the advantages but wrong about the results. The standard explanation is that capitalist enterprise is more efficient. Empirical research, however, overwhelmingly contradicts this. But employees almost never even attempt to organize worker cooperatives. I …
Understanding Csr: An Empirical Study Of Private Self-Regulation, Benedict Sheehy
Understanding Csr: An Empirical Study Of Private Self-Regulation, Benedict Sheehy
Benedict Sheehy
Abstract: The article is a study of an important burgeoning form of regulation—private self-regulation—in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Rather than taking a purely theoretical approach or a social scientific study relying publicly reported data, the article addresses the issue by way of interview based case studies. As a study in regulation it clarifies the difference between various types of self-regulation, trade associations’ codes as private self-regulation and government sponsored self-regulation. This distinction hampers efforts to understand the important aspects of motivation and compliance. This study provides empirical examination of compliance in private self-regulation. Given the impact and …
Llcs And Corporations: A Fork In The Road In Delaware?, Joshua P. Fershee
Llcs And Corporations: A Fork In The Road In Delaware?, Joshua P. Fershee
Joshua P Fershee
As Vice Chancellor Laster explained in CML V, LLC v. Bax, 6 A.3d 238 (Del. Ch. Nov. 3, 2010): '[T]here is nothing absurd about different legal principles applying to corporations and LLCs.'" This short paper argues that courts should respect the LLC as a business form distinct from corporations and that Delaware courts have taken the first step toward doing just that.
Where legislatures have decided that distinctly corporate concepts should apply to LLCs—such as allowing piercing the veil or derivative lawsuits—those wishes (obviously) should be honored by the courts. But where state LLC laws are silent, courts should carefully …
At The Intersection Of Corporate Governance And Environmental Sustainability, Jayne W. Barnard
At The Intersection Of Corporate Governance And Environmental Sustainability, Jayne W. Barnard
William & Mary Business Law Review
Most boards of public companies have learned to live comfortably with audit committees, nominating committees, and compensation committees. An increasing number of companies are now also creating risk-management committees. This Essay explores the early stages of development of yet another board-level committee: the sustainability committee. The Essay posits several advantages to having a board-level sustainability committee and identifies possible sources of pressure for the creation of more such committees. It also suggests some of the disadvantages of sustainability committees and cautions against cosmetic governance reform. By examining what we know today (and can imagine tomorrow) about sustainability committees, this Essay …
Trumbull Library System, Business Program: Patents & Business Intelligence, Amy Jansen, Robert Berry
Trumbull Library System, Business Program: Patents & Business Intelligence, Amy Jansen, Robert Berry
Librarian Publications
A November 10, 2011 presentation by Amy Jansen, Business Librarian at Sacred Heart University and Robert Berry, Research Librarian and Patent and Trademark Resource Center representative for the Sacred Heart University Library.
Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch
Securities Intermediaries And The Separation Of Ownership From Control, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
The Modern Corporation and Private Property highlighted the evolving separation of ownership and control in the public corporation and the effects of that separation on the allocation of power within the corporation. This essay explores the implications of intermediation for those themes. The article observes that intermediation, by decoupling economic ownership and decision-making authority within the shareholder, creates a second layer of agency issues beyond those identified by Berle and Means. These agency issues are an important consideration in the current debate over shareholder empowerment. The article concludes by considering the hypothetical shareholder construct implicit in the Berle and Means …
The Power Of Proxy Advisors: Myth Or Reality?, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan
The Power Of Proxy Advisors: Myth Or Reality?, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan
All Faculty Scholarship
Recent regulatory changes increasing shareholder voting authority have focused attention on the role of proxy advisors. In particular, greater shareholder empowerment raises the question of how much proxy advisors influence voting outcomes.
This Article analyzes the significance of voting recommendations issued by four proxy advisory firms in connection with uncontested director elections. We find, consistent with press reports, that Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) is the most powerful proxy advisor and that, of the others, only Glass, Lewis & Co. seems to have a meaningful impact on shareholder voting. This Article also attempts to measure the impact of voting recommendations on …
Director Elections And The Role Of Proxy Advisors, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan
Director Elections And The Role Of Proxy Advisors, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan
All Faculty Scholarship
Using a dataset of proxy recommendations and voting results for uncontested director elections from 2005 and 2006 at S&P 1500 companies, we examine how advisors make their recommendations. Of the four firms we study, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), Proxy Governance (PGI), Glass Lewis (GL), and Egan Jones (EJ), ISS has the largest market share and is widely regarded as the most influential. We find that the four proxy advisory firms differ substantially from each other both in their willingness to issue a withhold recommendation and in the factors that affect their recommendation. It is not clear that these differences, or …
Unentrapped, William W. Bratton
Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights, Lance A. Compa
Corporate Social Responsibility And Workers’ Rights, Lance A. Compa
Lance A Compa
[Excerpt] Corporate social responsibility (CSR) brings an important dimension to the global economy. CSR can enhance human rights, labor rights, and labor standards in the workplace by joining consumer power and socially responsible business leadership—not just leadership in Nike headquarters in Oregon or Levi Strauss headquarters in California, but leadership in trading house headquarters in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and leadership at the factory level in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Ten years ago, I would not have said this. I viewed corporate social responsibility and corporate codes of conduct as public relations maneuvers to pacify concerned consumers. Behind a facade of …
International Strategic Alliance, Mohd Arif
International Strategic Alliance, Mohd Arif
Mohd Arif
A Strategic Alliance is a relationship between firms to creat more value than they can on their own
Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
Shareholder Primacy's Corporatist Origins: Adolf Berle And The Modern Corporation, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese
The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.