Law Commons^™

How A “Superstar” Ceo Exposes The Necessity For Third Party D&O Insurance, Angela N. Aneiros, Karen Woody

Scholarly Articles

he influence that “superstar” CEOs have over a company’s board of directors can be alarming. Among other things, Elon’s ability to skirt personal liability for seemingly obvious breaches of duty has raised concerns within the realm of corporate governance and corporate regulation. While much has been written on Elon’s influence on Tesla’s board of directors, one area of the law that often gets overlooked that has exacerbated Elon’s corporate governance issues, is that of directors and officers (D&O) liability insurance. While personally insuring board members seems like a very "Elon" move, it could have broader implications beyond Elon. Are “superstar” …

The Landscape Of Startup Corporate Governance In The Founder-Friendly Era, Jennifer S. Fan

Articles

In corporate governance scholarship, there is an important debate about the nature and roles of the members of the board of directors in venture capital-backed private companies. The impact of a newly emerged, founder-centric model has been underappreciated, while the role of the independent director as tiebreaker or swing vote is vastly overstated. The reality is that corporate governance in these companies is a norm-driven, consensus-building process that rarely spills out into open conflict.

This is the first empirical study of startup corporate governance post-Great Recession and during the pandemic. Using survey and interview methodologies, this Article makes four primary …

Hidden Agendas In Shareholder Voting, Scott Hirst, Adriana Z. Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Nothing in either corporate or securities law requires companies to notify investors what they will be voting on before the record date for a shareholder meeting. We show that, overwhelmingly, they do not. The result is “hidden agendas”: for 88% of shareholder votes, investors cannot find out what they will be voting on before the record date. This poses an especially serious problem for investors who engage in securities lending: they must decide whether the expected benefit of voting exceeds the expected benefit of continuing to lend their shares (or making them available for lending) without knowing what they will …

Monitoring Facebook, Hillary A. Sale

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Few companies still in business have a track record as negative as Facebook. Facebook has paid billions of dollars in government fines and paid hundreds of millions in private settlements. Yet, the financial penalties are actually minimal relative to the harm done. Facebook seems to have been involved one way or another in privacy breaches, organized crime, election manipulation, suicide, and even genocide. Mark Zuckerberg, who still controls Facebook, appears to ignore the consequences of his choices, seemingly prioritizing profits over people. He appears to disregard the law and operate without integrity or honesty, excommunicating insiders who speak out or …

In Re The Walt Disney Co. Derivative Litigation Rewritten, Hillary A. Sale

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In re The Walt Disney Co. Derivative Litigation is notable for upholding the broad latitude courts afford to boards through the business judgment rule. The case addressed a $130 million termination package delivered to former Disney CEO, Michael Ovitz, after fourteen months of underperformance at the company. This rewritten opinion, to be published in “Feminist Judgements: Rewritten Corporate Law,” (Kelli Alces Williams, Anne Choike, & Usha R. Rodrigues, eds.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming 2022), follows the style of the Delaware Supreme Court and reaches the same outcome with a different approach. The opinion expounds on the corporate governance practices in …

Whitman And The Fiduciary Relationship Conundrum, Lisa Fairfax

All Faculty Scholarship

While the law on insider trading has been convoluted and, in Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s words, “topsy turvy,” the law on insider trading is supposedly clear on at least one point: insider trading liability is premised upon a fiduciary relationship. Thus, all three seminal U.S. Supreme Court cases articulating the necessary elements for demonstrating any form of insider trading liability under § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 made crystal clear that a fiduciary relationship represented the lynchpin for such liability.

Alas, insider trading law is not clear about the source from which the fiduciary …

Board Compliance, John Armour, Brandon L. Garrett, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Geeyoung Min

Faculty Scholarship

What role do corporate boards play in compliance? Compliance programs are internal enforcement programs, whereby firms train, monitor and discipline employees with respect to applicable laws and regulations. Corporate enforcement and compliance failures could not be more high-profile, and have placed boards in the position of responding to systemic problems. Both case law on boards’ fiduciary duties and guidance from prosecutors suggest that the board should have a continuing role in overseeing compliance activity. Yet very little is actually known about the role of boards in compliance. This paper offers the first empirical account of public companies’ engagement with compliance …

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls: Fiduciary Duties In Venture Capital Backed Startups, Sarath Sanga, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Venture-capital-backed startups are often crucibles of conflict between common and preferred shareholders, particularly around exit decisions. Such conflicts are so common, in fact, that they have catalyzed an emergent judicial precedent – the Trados doctrine – that requires boards to prioritize common shareholders' interest and to treat preferred shareholders as contractual claimants. We evaluate the Trados doctrine using a model of startup governance that interacts capital structure, corporate governance, and liability rules. The nature and degree of inter-shareholder conflict turns not only on the relative rights and options of equity participants, but also on a firm's intrinsic value as well …

Toward A Horizontal Fiduciary Duty In Corporate Law, Asaf Eckstein, Gideon Parchomovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

Fiduciary duty is arguably the single most important aspect of our corporate law system. It consists of two distinct sub-duties—a duty of care and a duty of loyalty—and it applies to all directors and corporate officers. Yet, under extant law, the duty only applies vertically, in the relationship between directors and corporate officers and the firm. At present, there exists no horizontal fiduciary duty: directors and corporate officers owe no fiduciary duty to each other. Consequently, if one of them fails her peers, they cannot seek direct legal recourse against her even when they stand to suffer significant reputational and …

Corporate Disobedience, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate law has long taken a dim view of corporate lawbreaking. Corporations can be chartered only for lawful activity. Contemporary case law characterizes intentional violations of law as a breach of the fiduciary duties of good faith and loyalty. While recognizing that rule breaking raises significant social and moral concerns, this Article suggests that corporate law and academic debate have overlooked important aspects of corporate disobedience. This Article provides an overview of corporate disobedience and illuminates the role that it has played in entrepreneurship and legal change. Corporations violate laws for a variety of reasons, including as part of efforts …

Startup Governance, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

Although previously considered rare, over three hundred startups have reached valuations over a billion dollars. Thousands of smaller startups aim to follow in their paths. Despite the enormous social and economic impact of venture-backed startups, their internal governance receives scant scholarly attention. Longstanding theories of corporate ownership and governance do not capture the special features of startups. They can grow large with ownership shared by diverse participants, and they face issues that do not fit the dominant principal-agent paradigm of public corporations or the classic narrative of controlling shareholders in closely held corporations.

This Article offers an original, comprehensive framework …

Sexual Harassment And Corporate Law, Daniel Hemel, Dorothy S. Lund

Faculty Scholarship

The #MeToo movement has shaken corporate America in recent months, leading to the departures of several high-profile executives as well as sharp stock price declines at a number of firms. Investors have taken notice and taken action: Shareholders at more than a half dozen publicly traded companies have filed lawsuits since the start of 2017 alleging that corporate fiduciaries breached state law duties or violated federal securities laws in connection with sexual harassment scandals. Additional suits are likely in the coming months.

This Article examines the role of corporate and securities law in regulating and remedying workplace sexual misconduct. We …

Contracting Out Of The Fiduciary Duty Of Loyalty: An Empirical Analysis Of Corporate Opportunity Waivers, Gabriel Rauterberg, Eric Talley

Articles

For centuries, the duty of loyalty has been the hallowed centerpiece of fiduciary obligation, widely considered one of the few “mandatory” rules of corporate law. That view, however, is no longer true. Beginning in 2000, Delaware dramatically departed from tradition by granting incorporated entities a statutory right to waive a crucial part of the duty of loyalty: the corporate opportunities doctrine. Other states have since followed Delaware’s lead, similarly permitting firms to execute “corporate opportunity waivers.” Surprisingly, more than fifteen years into this reform experiment, no study has attempted to either systematically measure the corporate response to these reforms or …

Fiduciary Duties Of Corporate Directors In Uncertain Times, Ellen J. Odoner, Stephen A. Radin, Lyuba A. Goltser, Andrew E. Blumberg

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

Directors addressing new political uncertainties, a host of heightened challenges and asserted “best practices” from many sources may understandably ask whether their fiduciary duties have changed as well. This paper synthesizes the latest decisions of the Delaware courts on the standards of conduct for directors and the standards by which their conduct is reviewed. While directors should expect uncertainty to be a fact of corporate life for the foreseeable future, this paper emphasizes that neither the fiduciary duties of directors nor the protections afforded them have changed. Disinterested and independent directors acting in good faith continue to have broad protections …

Board Excellence And Fiduciary Duties Of Corporate Directors, E. Norman Veasey, Ira M. Millstein

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

This article is intended for corporate directors and explores the key issues that directors should understand with respect to their fiduciary duties. An accompanying paper authored by Ellen Odoner, Stephen Radin, Lyuba Goltser, and Andrew Blumberg of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP provides a detailed analysis of the concepts discussed in this article and is recommended to general counsel, as they advise their corporate boards with respect to their fiduciary duties, as well as directors who wish to have a better understanding of their own fiduciary duties.

The Fiduciary Enterprise Of Corporate Law, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Corporate Power Is Corporate Purpose Ii: An Encouragement For Future Consideration From Professors Johnson And Millon, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper is the second in a series considering the argument that corporate laws that give only rights to stockholders somehow implicitly empower directors to regard other constituencies as equal ends in governance. This piece was written as part of a symposium honoring the outstanding work of Professors Lyman Johnson and David Millon, and it seeks to encourage Professors Johnson and Millon, as proponents of the view that corporations have no duty to make stockholder welfare the end of corporate law, to focus on the reality that corporate power translates into corporate purpose.

Drawing on examples of controlled companies that …

Corporate Power Is Corporate Purpose I: Evidence From My Hometown, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper is the first in a series considering a rather tired argument in corporate governance circles, that corporate laws that give only rights to stockholders somehow implicitly empower directors to regard other constituencies as equal ends in governance. By continuing to suggest that corporate boards themselves are empowered to treat the best interests of other corporate constituencies as ends in themselves, no less important than stockholders, scholars and commentators obscure the need for legal protections for other constituencies and for other legal reforms that give these constituencies the means to more effectively protect themselves.

Using recent events in the …

How Do Llc Owners Contract Around Default Statutory Protections?, Peter Molk

UF Law Faculty Publications

Limited liability companies are built on the idea of contractual freedom. Unlike other business organization forms, most owner protections apply only by default to LLCs, which are free to waive or modify them as desired. This freedom promises economic efficiency if parties are sophisticated but raises the potential for opportunism by relatively more sophisticated managers and majority owners. While companies ranging from small landscape firms to Chrysler and Fidelity organize as LLCs, remarkably little is known about whether or how LLCs use this contractual flexibility. I analyze the operating agreements of 283 privately owned LLCs organized under Delaware and New …

Law And Corporate Governance, Robert P. Bartlett, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Pragmatic and effective research on corporate governance often turns critically on appreciating the legal institutions surrounding corporate entities – yet such nuances are often unfamiliar or poorly specified to economists and other social scientists without legal training. This chapter organizes and discusses key legal concepts of corporate governance, including statutes, regulations, and jurisprudential doctrines that “govern governance” in private and public companies, with concentration on the for-profit corporation. We review the literature concerning the nature and purpose of the corporation, the objects of fiduciary obligations, the means for decision making within the firm, as well as the overlay of state …

Disciplining Corporate Boards And Debtholders Through Targeted Proxy Access, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

Corporate directors committed to a failed business strategy or unduly influenced by the company’s debtholders need a dissenting voice—they need shareholder nominees on the board. This article examines the bias, conflicts, and external factors that impact board decisions, particularly when a company faces financial distress. It challenges the conventional wisdom that debt disciplines management, and it suggests that, in certain circumstances, the company would benefit from having the shareholders’ perspective more actively represented on the board. To that end, the article proposes a bylaw that would give shareholders the ability to nominate directors upon the occurrence of predefined events. Such …

Constitutionalizing Corporate Law, Elizabeth Pollman

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court has recently decided some of the most important and controversial cases involving the federal rights of corporations in over two hundred years of jurisprudence. In rulings ranging from corporate political spending to religious liberty rights, the Court has dramatically expanded the zone in which corporations can act free from regulation. This Article argues these decisions represent a doctrinal shift, even from previous cases granting rights to corporations. The modern corporate rights doctrine has put unprecedented weight on state corporate law to act as a mechanism for resolving disputes among corporate participants regarding the expressive and religious activity …

A Defense Of The Corporate Law Duty Of Care, Julian Velasco

Journal Articles

Most people would acknowledge the importance of the duty of loyalty, but the same is not true of the duty of care. Historically, the corporate law duty of care has been underenforced at best, and arguably unenforced entirely. Some scholars do not consider the duty of care to be a fiduciary duty at all, and there are those who would do away with it entirely. In this paper, I intend to provide a comprehensive defense of the corporate law fiduciary duty of care. I hope to show that the duty of care is not simply an ill-fitting appendage to the …

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance: Where Do Shareholders Really Stand?, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

This feature article in the Director Journal summarizes the findings from the report, "A Canadian Model of Corporate Governance: Insights from Canada's Leading Legal Practitioners," produced for the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research and the Institute of Corporate Directors (also available on SSRN).

In the report, interviews were conducted with 32 leading senior legal practitioners across Canada to opine on the fundamental principles that are driving the development of Canadian corporate governance. The report found that Canadian common law has made the process of considering stakeholders in the "best interests of the corporation" more overt, well beyond what is assumed …

A Canadian Model Of Corporate Governance, Carol Liao

All Faculty Publications

What is Canada’s actual legal model to govern its corporations? Recent landmark judicial decisions indicate Canada is shifting away from an Anglo-American definition of shareholder primacy. Yet the Canadian securities commissions have become increasingly influential in the governance sphere, and by nature are shareholder-focused. Shareholders’ rights have increased well beyond what was ever contemplated by Canadian corporate laws, and the issue of greater shareholder vs. board control has now become the topic of live debate. The future of Canada's overall model seems to rest on what will be more compelling: the constancy of the corporate statutes and trajectory of the …

'Quack Corporate Governance' As Traditional Chinese Medicine – The Securities Regulation Cannibalization Of China's Corporate Law And A State Regulator's Battle Against Party State Political Economic Power, Nicholas C. Howson

Articles

From the start of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) “corporatization ” project in the late 1980s, a Chinese corporate governance regime subject to increasingly enabling legal norms has been determined by mandatory regulations imposed by the PRC securities regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Indeed, the Chinese corporate law system has been cannibalized by all - encompassing securities regulation directed at corporate governance, at least for companies with listed stock. This Article traces the path of that sustained intervention and makes a case — wholly contrary to the “quack corporate governance” critique much aired in the United States …

Corporate Culture And Erm, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

The attitudes and actions of those viewed as leaders within a company (commonly referred to as “tone at the top”) help to define corporate culture and are critical to implementing a successful enterprise risk management (ERM) program. This paper explores the challenges and benefits of creating a risk-aware corporate culture, including the potential legal implications for boards of directors.

Auction Theory And Standstills: Dealing With Friends And Foes In A Sale Of Corporate Control, Christina M. Sautter

Journal Articles

A fundamental issue in Delaware mergers & acquisitions (M&A) law is the extent to which a target company’s board of directors may restrict a sales process to extract value from bidders and grant a “winning bidder” certain deal protections to protect a transaction from being overbid. Standstill agreements are one such form of deal protection. Standstills prevent bidders from making or announcing a bid for the target without the target’s consent both during the sales process and for a period after the sales process is completed and the target has executed an agreement with a “winning bidder.” Recent 2011 and …

Is The Corporate Director's Duty Of Care A 'Fiduciary' Duty? Does It Matter?, Christopher M. Bruner

Scholarly Articles

While reference to "fiduciary duties" (plural) is routinely employed in the United States as a convenient short-hand for a corporate director's duties of care and loyalty, other common-law countries generally treat loyalty as the sole "fiduciary duty." This contrast prompts some important questions about the doctrinal structure for duty of care analysis adopted in Delaware, the principal jurisdiction of incorporation for U.S. public companies. Specifically, has the evolution of Delaware's convoluted and problematic framework for evaluating disinterested board conduct been facilitated by styling care a "fiduciary" duty? If so, then how should Delaware lawmakers and judges respond moving forward?

In …

Fiduciary Duties And Fiduciary Outs, Julian Velasco

Journal Articles

Fiduciary outs are virtually ubiquitous in acquisition agreements, but almost unheard of in other contexts. This is because the fiduciary out is an inherently problematic device. Although it is not intended to do so, it almost necessarily transforms an agreement into an option in the hands of one party. Nevertheless, fiduciary outs make sense in the context of acquisition agreements. This is because fiduciary outs are essentially contractual proxies for fiduciary duties. As such, they have the same purpose: to protect shareholders from abuse at the hands of directors. Fiduciary outs do this in the context of acquisition agreements by …