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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Corporation’S Place In Society, Gabriel Rauterberg Jan 2016

The Corporation’S Place In Society, Gabriel Rauterberg

Michigan Law Review

The vast majority of economic activity is now organized through corporations. The public corporation is usurping the state’s role as the most important institution of wealthy capitalist societies. Across the developed world, there is increasing convergence on the shareholder-owned corporation as the primary vehicle for creating wealth. Yet nothing like this degree of convergence has occurred in answering the fundamental questions of corporate capitalism: What role do corporations serve? What is the goal of corporate law? What should corporate managers do? Discussion of these questions is as old as the institutions involved.


Territoriality: For And Against, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2013

Territoriality: For And Against, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The tax on dividends from the active income of controlled foreign corporations meets the criteria for a bad tax: It raises little revenue but significantly affects taxpayer behavior in undesirable ways.


Arguments For And Against Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2013

Arguments For And Against Territoriality, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

The tax on dividends from the active income of controlled foreign corporations meets the criteria for a bad tax: It raises little revenue but significantly affects taxpayer behavior in undesirable ways.


Market Power In Power Markets: The Filed-Rate Doctrine And Competition In Electricity, Sandeep Vaheesan Apr 2013

Market Power In Power Markets: The Filed-Rate Doctrine And Competition In Electricity, Sandeep Vaheesan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

State and federal initiatives have opened the American electric power industry to competition over the past four decades. Although the process has not occurred uniformly across the country, wholesale electricity markets exist everywhere today. Independent power producers can construct generation facilities and sell their output to utilities and industrial customers through bilateral contracts. In many regions, centralized power markets now facilitate the sale of billions of dollars in electricity annually through auctions. Although market forces have replaced direct price regulation in electricity, antitrust enforcement has not expanded its role commensurately. A lack of competition has been a serious problem in …


Stop Being Evil: A Proposal For Unbiased Google Search, Joshua G. Hazan Mar 2013

Stop Being Evil: A Proposal For Unbiased Google Search, Joshua G. Hazan

Michigan Law Review

Since its inception in the late 1990s, Google has done as much as anyone to create an "open internet." Thanks to Google's unparalleled search algorithms, anyone's ideas can be heard, and all kinds of information are easier than ever to find. As Google has extended its ambition beyond its core function, however it has conducted itself in a manner that now threatens the openness and diversity of the same internet ecosystem that it once championed. By promoting its own content and vertical search services above all others, Google places a significant obstacle in the path of its competitors. This handicap …


Franchise Goodwill: Take A Sad Song And Make It Better, Robert W. Emerson Jan 2013

Franchise Goodwill: Take A Sad Song And Make It Better, Robert W. Emerson

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The end of a franchisor-franchisee relationship is often like a divorce, with the parties engaged in a heated battle over the ownership of the franchise goodwill. In this debate, the same franchisors or franchisees often change their positions on goodwill ownership depending on current needs. This Article analyzes cases in many areas of franchise law to determine why franchisors and franchisees engage in such inconsistent reasoning, what the consequences are for franchising, and if there are ways to produce a more logical and efficient form of analysis and debate. In addressing the most contentious issues of franchising, adherence by litigants …


Antitrust Rulemaking As A Solution To Abuse On The Standard-Setting Process, Adam Speegle Mar 2012

Antitrust Rulemaking As A Solution To Abuse On The Standard-Setting Process, Adam Speegle

Michigan Law Review

While many recognize the critical role that technology plays in modern life, few appreciate the role that standards play in contributing to its success. Devices as prevalent as the modern laptop computer for example, may be governed by over 500 interoperability standards, regulating everything from the USB drive to the memory chip. To facilitate adoption of such standards, firms are increasingly turning to standard-setting organizations. These organizations consist of members of an industry who agree to abide by the organization's bylaws, which typically regard topics such as patent disclosure and reasonable licensing. Problems arise, however, when members violate these bylaws …


The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav Jan 2012

The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav

Articles

The United States has the second highest statutory corporate tax rate in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) (after Japan).1 This has not always been the case. After the Tax Reform Act of 1986 lowered the U.S. rate from 46% to 34%,2 the United States had one of the lowest statutory corporate tax rates in the OECD.3 In the past twenty-five years, however, the U.S. rate has remained essentially unchanged (it was raised to 35% in 1993),4 while most other OECD countries reduced their statutory rate so that the OECD average statutory corporate tax rate is 25.1%.


Creating A Plug-In Electric Vehicle Industry Cluster In Michigan: Prospects And Policy Options, Thomas P. Lyon, Russell A. Baruffi Jr. Jan 2011

Creating A Plug-In Electric Vehicle Industry Cluster In Michigan: Prospects And Policy Options, Thomas P. Lyon, Russell A. Baruffi Jr.

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Article seeks to examine how policy can be used strategically to foster the development of a plug-in electric vehicle ("PEV") industry cluster in Michigan. The tendency for certain industries to localize in particular regions has captured the interest of much economic research and policy discussion in recent years. The trend toward the clustering of new industries has stayed strong despite the acceleration of globalization. Attention to clusters has proven to be an enduring theme in economic development circles for nearly thirty years. Clusters generate synergies that make industrial activity greater than the sum of contributions by individual players. In …


Reflections On Section 5 Of The Ftc Act And The Ftc's Case Against Intel, Daniel A. Crane Jan 2010

Reflections On Section 5 Of The Ftc Act And The Ftc's Case Against Intel, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) unprecedented enforcement action against Intel raises profound issues concerning the scope of the FTC’s powers to give a construction to Section 5 of the FTC Act that goes beyond the substantive reach of the Sherman Act. While I have urged the FTC to assert such independence from the Sherman Act, this is the wrong case to make a break. Indeed, if anything, Intel poses a risk of seriously setting back the development of an independent Section 5 power by provoking a hostile appellate court to rebuke the FTC’s effort and cabin the FTC’s powers in …


London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard Jan 2009

London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

Jurisdictional competition in corporate law has long been a staple of academic-and sometimes, political-debate in the United States. State corporate law, by long-standing tradition in the United States, determines most questions of internal corporate governance-the role of boards of directors, the allocation of authority between directors, managers and shareholders, etc.-while federal law governs questions of disclosure to shareholders-annual reports, proxy statements, and periodic filings. Despite substantial incursions by Congress, most recently in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, this dividing line between state and federal law persists, so state law arguably has the most immediate impact on corporate governance outcomes.


London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard Jan 2009

London As Delaware?, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

In the United States, state corporate law determines most questions of internal corporate governance - the role of directors; the allocation of authority between directors, managers, and shareholders; etc. - while federal law governs questions of disclosure to shareholders - annual reports, proxy statements, and periodic filings. Despite substantial incursions by Congress, most recently with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, this dividing line between state and federal law persists, so state law arguably has the most immediate effect on corporate governance outcomes.


Corporate Taxation And International Charter Competition, Mitchell A. Kane, Edward B. Rock May 2008

Corporate Taxation And International Charter Competition, Mitchell A. Kane, Edward B. Rock

Michigan Law Review

Corporate charter competition has become an increasingly international phenomenon. The thesis of this Article is that this development in corporate law requires a greater focus on corporate tax law. We first demonstrate how a tax system's capacity to distort the international charter market depends both upon its approach to determining corporate location and upon the extent to which it taxes foreign source corporate profits. We also show, however, that it is not possible to remove all distortions through modifications to the tax system alone. We present instead two alternative methods for preserving an international charter market. The first-best solution involves …


Knowledge, Competition And The Innovation: Is Stronger Ipr Protection Really Needed For More And Better Innovations, Giovanni Dosi, Luigi Marengo, Corrado Pasquali Jan 2007

Knowledge, Competition And The Innovation: Is Stronger Ipr Protection Really Needed For More And Better Innovations, Giovanni Dosi, Luigi Marengo, Corrado Pasquali

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The main questions addressed in this Article are thus: given that growth is a highly desirable phenomenon and that it is primarily spurred by technological innovation, how should society solve the problem of favoring a sufficient level of investments in R&D? In particular, is it necessarily true and always desirable that, independent of any other consideration, society should protect innovators from competition and shelter them in a legally protected and enforced monopoly? Is it true that the real source of economic value of new recipes is only found in the blueprints of ideas that those recipes implement? Is it necessarily …


Protection Against Unwarranted Searches And Seizures Of Corporate Premises Under Article 8 Of The European Convention On Human Rights: The Colas Est Sa V. France Approach, Marius Emberland Jan 2003

Protection Against Unwarranted Searches And Seizures Of Corporate Premises Under Article 8 Of The European Convention On Human Rights: The Colas Est Sa V. France Approach, Marius Emberland

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Article, the author considers the judgment delivered April 16, 2002, by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Colas Est SA v. France. The judgment concerned the interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which provides: (1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. (2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests …


Competition, Corporate Responsibility, And The China Question, Jospeh Vining Jan 2003

Competition, Corporate Responsibility, And The China Question, Jospeh Vining

Other Publications

"Corporate responsibility" is not a peripheral matter. It is at the core of all decision-making on behalf of business corporations under American law. This paper examines the effort to add an exemption for "business" in corporate form to the exemptions from ordinary responsibility that are seen in other areas of activity - e.g., for the military, for lawyers in adversarial litigation, or for investigators in scientific research. It looks at a number of well known cases and points to the often neglected relevance of both the criminal law applicable to corporations as such, and the evolving professional responsibility of corporate …


For Haven's Sake: Reflections On Inversion Transactions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Jun 2002

For Haven's Sake: Reflections On Inversion Transactions, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This article discusses “inversion” transactions, in which a publicly traded U.S. corporation becomes a subsidiary of a newly established tax haven parent corporation. In the last three years, an increasing number of these transactions have been taking place, undeterred by the shareholderlevel tax imposed by the IRS on them in 1994. The article first discusses the reasons for the increasing popularity of the transactions and the tax goals they aim at achieving (primarily avoiding subpart F and U.S. earnings stripping). The article then discusses the tax policy implications of these transactions. In the short run, the article suggests that the …


The Promise And Perils Of Strategic Publication To Create Prior Art: A Response To Professor Parchomovsky, Rebecca S. Eisenberg Jan 2000

The Promise And Perils Of Strategic Publication To Create Prior Art: A Response To Professor Parchomovsky, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

In a provocative recent article in the Michigan Law Review, Professor Gideon Parchomovsky observes that a firm racing with a competitor to make a patentable invention might find it strategically advantageous to publish interim research results rather than risk losing a patent race. This strategy exploits legal rules limiting patent protection to technological advances that are new and "nonobvious" in light of the "prior art" or preexisting knowledge in the field. By publishing research results, a firm adds to the prior art and thereby limits what may be patented in the future. Parchomovsky posits that, before it is able to …


Antitrust Enfocement And High-Technology Markets, William J. Baer, David A. Balto Jun 1999

Antitrust Enfocement And High-Technology Markets, William J. Baer, David A. Balto

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Although the antitrust laws apply to all industries, the application must be tempered in each case by the myriad ways in which competition can be modified by structural, behavioral, technological, regulatory, and other characteristics. The Commission applies the antitrust laws with sensitivity to the special characteristics of high-tech industries and of intellectual property, but also with the recognition that--as in other industries--competition plays an important role in spurring innovation and in spreading the benefits of that innovation to consumers. This focus is not new. This balanced approach has roots that go back at least to the 1977 Antitrust Guide to …


Resale Issues In Telecommunications Regulation: An Economic Perspective, Alexander C. Larson Jun 1996

Resale Issues In Telecommunications Regulation: An Economic Perspective, Alexander C. Larson

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to evaluate proposed resale policies from an economic perspective. Specifically, this Article evaluates whether mandated resale can be expected to lead to the benefits ascribed to it by its proponents. In addition, this Article identifies issues which must be addressed before an economically sound local service resale policy may be put into place.


The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, And Government In The American Economy, James R. Steffen May 1988

The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, And Government In The American Economy, James R. Steffen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, and Government in the American Economy by Walter Adams and James W. Brock


Competition, Integration And Economic Efficiency In The Eec From The Point Of View Of The Private Firm, Michel Waelbroeck May 1984

Competition, Integration And Economic Efficiency In The Eec From The Point Of View Of The Private Firm, Michel Waelbroeck

Michigan Law Review

As early as 1956, experts appointed by the six original Member State governments to investigate measures to pursue integration after the failure of the European Defence Community clearly established this link between the abolition of barriers to trade and an increase in the intensity of competition. In what has come to be known as the "Spaak Report," the experts noted the technology gap then separating Europe from the United States and proposed, as a remedial measure, the creation of a ''vast zone of common economic policy, constituting a powerful production unit, and allowing a continued expansion, and increased stability, an …


Introduction: Transnational Corporate Concentration-The Issues, Thomas E. Kauper Jan 1981

Introduction: Transnational Corporate Concentration-The Issues, Thomas E. Kauper

Michigan Journal of International Law

Competition policy in the United States, particularly reflected in antitrust policy, in recent years has focused on corporate structure. To some, this emphasis simply reflects a belief in a close correlation between corporate structure and behavior. A single firm monopoly inevitably will restrict output and raise prices above levels that would prevail under competition conditions, distorting allocative efficiency. The behavioral pattern is a direct consequence of structure. Many believe that high corporate concentration, even short of single firm monopoly, is at least conducive to, if not a cause of, monopolistic behavior. Some also view high corporate concentration, and the aggregation …


International Implications Of Limitations On "Aggregate Concentration", David Boies Jan 1981

International Implications Of Limitations On "Aggregate Concentration", David Boies

Michigan Journal of International Law

Traditionally, antitrust laws have been concerned with competition and concentration within a single market. In the past few years, however, increasing attention has been given to economywide or aggregate concentration-especially when such concentration is accomplished by merger rather than by internal growth. In 1979 and 1980, Congress considered Senate Bill S. 600 which would limit mergers based on size criteria that are unrelated, at least directly, to proof of a lessening of competition within any given market. The international implications of applying this principle are complex and difficult, and have yet to be fully addressed. It is the purpose of …


Doctrines And Problems Relating To U.S. Control Of Transnational Corporate Concentration, Douglas E. Rosenthal, Stuart E. Benson, Lisa Chiles Jan 1981

Doctrines And Problems Relating To U.S. Control Of Transnational Corporate Concentration, Douglas E. Rosenthal, Stuart E. Benson, Lisa Chiles

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is the principal thesis of this article that important recent case decisions in U.S. antitrust law reflect just this conflict over the extent to which intraindustry (horizontal) concentration is economically harmful. We are at a point where the future direction of the law is difficult to discern. Until there is greater U.S. policy agreement, and consistency within U.S. law itself, it is unlikely that any common transnational response will emerge to even horizontal corporate concentration. Ironically, it may not be possible to clarify U.S. antitrust law as long as the underlying policy conflict remains so sharp. For the present, …


The "Economic" Analysis Of Transnational Mergers, William James Adams Jan 1981

The "Economic" Analysis Of Transnational Mergers, William James Adams

Michigan Journal of International Law

No congregation of lawyers can be considered complete without a token economist. The role of the economist consists of describing the economic mode of analyzing the legal problem under consideration. Unfortunately from the standpoint of the token, economists rarely agree on criteria appropriate for the appraisal of economic phenomena. With respect to transnational corporate mergers, four modes of analysis may be described legitimately as economic.


United Kingdom Regulation Of Transnational Corporate Concentration, J. Denys Gribbin Jan 1981

United Kingdom Regulation Of Transnational Corporate Concentration, J. Denys Gribbin

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article begins by describing the United Kingdom's policy toward outward and inward direct investment and then sets out the essentials of the competition laws that are among the major, nondiscriminatory regulatory mechanisms that affect corporate behavior and planning. The article also analyzes the development of competition policy as a microeconomic instrument along with its application to monopoly, oligopoly, and cartels involving transnational corporations. Competition policy, except for cartels, is shown to be relatively benign toward mergers until recently, and with respect to monopoly and oligopoly has sought remedies in regulation of prices and behavior rather than through structural change. …


Sherman Act Applications To Predation By Controlled Economy Enterprises Marketing In The United States: Departures From Mechanical Formulae, Deborah M. Levy Jan 1981

Sherman Act Applications To Predation By Controlled Economy Enterprises Marketing In The United States: Departures From Mechanical Formulae, Deborah M. Levy

Michigan Journal of International Law

In a reproachful dissent in United States v. Columbia Steel, the late Justice Douglas sought to remind his brethren what the antitrust laws of the United States are all about: [A]ll power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy. Industrial power should be decentralized.... That is the philosophy and the command of the Sherman Act.


Reflections On Recent Oecd Activities: Regulation Of Multinational Corporate Conduct And Structure, Kurt Stockmann Jan 1981

Reflections On Recent Oecd Activities: Regulation Of Multinational Corporate Conduct And Structure, Kurt Stockmann

Michigan Journal of International Law

In recent, years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has repeatedly addressed, in a variety of forms, the problem of transnational corporate concentration. In the field of restrictive business practices, it has made suggestions on specific antitrust problems, issued council recommendations, and promulgated the 1976 Concil Guidelines for multinational enterprises. Not surprisingly for an organization that adheres to the principle of unanimity and, consequently, is governed by the law of the smallest common denominator, these efforts have thus far focused more on procedure than on substance. Even where quasisubstantive rules have been adopted, such as in competition guideline …


Regulation Of Concentration Through Merger Control: Germany's Continuing Efforts, Kurt Stockmann Jan 1981

Regulation Of Concentration Through Merger Control: Germany's Continuing Efforts, Kurt Stockmann

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Federal Republic of Germany's Law Against Restraints on Competition (the ARC), establishes an extensive regime for regulating market-dominating enterprises. Therefore, large corporations, both national and multinational, are the subject of particular scrutiny in the Federal Republic. Rather than identify and address all the provisions pertinent to corporate concentration (a task whose tedium would be matched only by its enormity), this analysis will undertake three tasks: (1) briefly describe the general scope of West German merger law, (2) discuss the application of the law to cases of transnational concentration, and (3) explain the proposed Fourth Amendment to the ARC as …