Law Commons^™

Brief Of Professors At Law And Business Schools As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Respondents, James D. Cox, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, J. Robert Brown, Joan Macleod Heminway

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This Amicus Brief was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of nearly 50 law and business faculty in the United States and Canada who have a common interest in ensuring a proper interpretation of the statutory securities regulation framework put in place by the U.S. Congress. Specifically, all amici agree that Item 303 of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation S-K creates a duty to disclose for purposes of Rule 10b-5(b) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The Court’s affirmation of a duty to disclose would have little effect on existing practice. Under the current state of …

Protecting Mutual Fund Investors: An Inevitable Eclecticism, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Relating Fiduciary Duties To Corporate Personhood And Corporate Purpose, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Individual And Collective Sovereignty In The Corporate Enterprise (Reviewing Frank H. Easterbrook & Daniel R. Fishel, The Economic Structure Of Corporate Law (1991) And Robert N. Bellah Et Al., The Good Society (1991), Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Not available.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And Fiduciary Duties, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, Mark A. Sides

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article explores the implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for fiduciary duty analysis in corporate law. The article examines those provisions of the Act, and recent SEC, NYSE and NASDAQ rules, that most pointedly bear on corporate governance. The article develops in detail exactly how Sarbanes-Oxley and those rules may alter state fiduciary duty law. Sarbanes-Oxley makes unprecedented federal inroads into the area of corporate governance and, although the fact of federal incursion into corporate governance is important in its own right, the more intriguing issue concerns the eventual interplay between federal and state law. Specifically, on various …

Comment On The Proposed Definition Of “Eligible Organization” For Purposes Of Coverage Of Certain Preventative Services Under The Affordable Care Act, Lyman P. Q. Johnson, David K. Millon, Stephen M. Bainbridge, Ronald J. Colombo, Brett Mcdonnell, Alan J. Meese, Nathan B. Oman

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

In late August 2014, after suffering a defeat in the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision when the Court held that business corporations are “persons” that can “exercise religion,” the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) proposed new rules defining “eligible organizations.” Purportedly designed to accommodate the Hobby Lobby ruling, the proposed rules do not comport with the reasoning of that important decision and they unjustifiably seek to permit only a small group of business corporations to be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage on religious grounds. This comment letter to the HHS about its proposed rules makes several theoretical and …

The Still-Dwindled Revlon, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, Robert Ricca

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This is a brief Response to Professor Mohsen Manesh’s extensive response to our original article, The Dwindling of Revlon. Our thesis is that today the iconic Revlon doctrine is, remedially, quite substantially diminished. Although Professor Manesh sets out to establish what he calls “the limits of Johnson’s and Ricca’s thesis,” we here maintain, as before, that there is little remedial clout to Revlon unless directors or others very significantly misbehave. We also criticize Delaware’s continuing use of the standard-of-conduct/standard-of-review construct in the fiduciary duty area. This rubric is unhelpful generally and strikingly so in the Revlon setting, as we note.

Law And The History Of Corporate Responsibilities: Corporate Governance, Lyman Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Innovation In Teaching Llcs: Introduction, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

The Dwindling Of Revlon, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, Robert Ricca

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Unsettledness In Delaware Corporate Law: Business Judgment Rule, Corporate Purpose, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This Article revisits two fundamental issues in corporate law. One — the central role of the business judgment rule in fiduciary litigation — involves a great deal of seemingly settled law, while the other — is there a mandated corporate purpose — has very little law. Using the emergent question of whether the business judgment rule should be used in analyzing officer and controlling shareholder fiduciary duties, the latter issue having recently been addressed by Chancellor Strine in the widely-heralded MFW decision, this Article proposes a fundamental rethinking of the rule’s analytical preeminence. For a variety of reasons, it is …

Beyond The Inevitable And Inadequate Regulation Of Bankers, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

None available.

Reclaiming An Ethic Of Corporate Responsibility, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Reality Check On Officer Liability, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article addresses the fiduciary duties of corporate officers. Responding to a critique that recent scholarly analyses of officers depart from reality, it argues that, on a variety of grounds, those analyses are more realistic than the critique and provide doctrinal coherence and advance the goal of meaningful executive accountability. The divergent governance functions of directing versus managing are described and it is argued that those disparate roles should matter for fiduciary duty analysis. No great outbreak of litigation should be expected if officers are held to a stricter duty of care than directors because boards of directors, not courts, …

Corporate Takeovers And Corporations: Who Are They For?, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty Over Corporate Stock, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Recalling Why Corporate Officers Are Fiduciaries, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

For all the recent federal attention to regulating - and differentiating - corporate officer and director functions, a curious fact remains: state fiduciary duty law makes no distinction between the fiduciary duties of these two groups. Instead, courts and commentators routinely describe the duties of directors and officers together, and in identical terms. To lump officers and directors together as generic fiduciaries with no distinction being made between them, suggests - as patently is not the case - that their institutional function and legal roles within the corporation are the same. Such a view, consequently, undermines efforts more sharply to …

The Social Responsibility Of Corporate Law Professors, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Most statements of corporate social responsibility focus on the responsibilities of corporate decision makers or their advisors Professor Johnson argues that corporate law professors-the persons who educate the students who will become lawyers counseling corporate decision makers-also have a social responsibility. He believes that professors should find various ways to raise the subject of corporate social responsibility in the basic corporations course, and he advocates rejecting a classroom approach that addresses only shareholder-manager relations After describing several possible ways to do this, Professor Johnson spotlights fiduciary laws as a fruitful area to enrich student understandings of director duties in a …

Are Corporate Officers Advised About Fiduciary Duties, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This Article reports the results of an empirical study of whether and how in-house corporate counsel advise corporate officers about fiduciary duties. The fiduciary duties of officers long have been neglected by courts, scholars, and lawyers, as the Introduction explains, even though executives play a central role in corporate success and failure. The study’s findings, organized by type of company (public or private), size, and attorney position within the firm, show several interesting patterns in advice-giving practices. For example, fewer than half of all respondents provided advice to officers below the senior-most rank. The results raise the possibility that, unlike …

Delaware's Non-Waivable Duties, Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This Article disputes the view - seemingly settled among scholars, judges, and lawyers - that recently - enacted statutes in Delaware legally permit fiduciary duties to be waived in noncorporate business associations. The argument is a rarity in business law because it is a constitutional argument, not one initially based on policy considerations or statutory interpretation, and it seeks to harmonize judicial review of fiduciary duties in noncorporate businesses with that in Delaware corporations, where waivers are not permitted. Delaware’s Constitution vests the Delaware Court of Chancery with general equity jurisdiction and powers of a kind that cannot be curtailed …

After Enron: Remembering Loyalty Discourse In Corporate Law, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

The demise of monetary damages as a remedy for breach of the corporate director duty of due care means that only a breach of the duty of loyalty or good faith affords the possibility of holding corporate directors personally liable for wrongdoing. The author argues that the fiduciary duty of loyalty contains both a widely appreciated, but rather minimal, "non-betrayal" aspect and a less appreciated, but more affirmative, "devotion" dimension. The affirmative. thrust of loyalty, grounded in widely-shared cultural norms and finding expression in myriad literary and religious stories, offers a doctrinal avenue for addressing a potentially broader range of …

Corporate And Business Law (Annual Survey Of Virginia Law), Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article reviews changes in Virginia corporate and business law for the period from June 2000 through May 2001. Part II ex- amines legislative changes in corporate and other business stat- utes (excluding public service corporation and insurance law is- sues) based on Virginia General Assembly action in the 2001 session. Part III reviews judicial decisions during the year, in- cluding decisions addressing agency law, partnership law, and corporate law issues and principles. This article describes these decisions and, in several instances, it also critically analyzes the outcomes. Part IV summarizes a May 25, 2001, Order of the Vir- ginia …

Rethinking Judicial Review Of Director Care, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article offers an extended critique of the Delaware Supreme Court's unprecedented use of an entire fairness test in a breach of due care setting, as first articulated in Cede & Co. v. Technicolor, Inc. 634 A.2d 345 (Del. 1993) and Cinerama, Inc. v. Technocolor, Inc., 663 A.2d 1156 (Del. 1995). The article then argues for a generalized reasonableness standard for director conduct and for judicially reviewing care claims, thereby providing Delaware law with something it has lacked historically ? a pervasive (yet still streamlined) duty of due care.

Misreading The Williams Act, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

Missing The Point About State Takeover Statutes, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

A Fresh Look At Director "Independence": Mutual Fund Fee Litigation And Gartenberg At Twenty-Five, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article contrasts how a robust conception of director independence plays a central role in the corporate law world while, in the mutual fund industry, independence is a shrunken conception playing only a marginal role. Over the last twenty-five years, director independence in corporate law has gained wide acceptance as being desirable and it has become a critical component of fiduciary duty analysis. Within the mutual fund industry, however, independence remains fiercely contested. The more obvious battle over independence has occurred in response to the Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC's") rulemaking effort to alter the standard for granting certain regulatory …

Counter-Narrative In Corporate Law: Saints And Sinners, Apostles And Epistles, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

Corporate law is bi-vocal. On the one hand, liberating and amoral statutes permit a master narrative of business persons eagerly pursuing the good life as they see it. The mixture of such lax law and human frailty frequently leads to the unleashing of boundless ambition, vanity, avarice, duplicity, and much mischief. On the other hand, another voice in corporate law occasionally moves into the foreground to interrupt and tell its own story – a counter-narrative demanding a measure of self-restraint – when those who direct or manage company affairs press self-gain (or sloth) to the point of intolerable excess. The …

The Modest Business Judgment Rule, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

This article argues that Delaware mis-formulates and mis-uses the business judgment rule. Properly understood, the business judgment rule's function in corporate law is quite modest. It is a narrowly-drawn judicial policy of nonreview which, in duty of care cases, shields the merits of board decisions from judicial scrutiny. The article contends that the business judgment rule, therefore, should be de-emphasized as an analytical construct in the law of director fiduciary duties and should be sharply differentiated from the broader-gauged duty of due care. Doing so will pave the way for Delaware courts to rethink the importance of articulating a robust, …

Re-Enchanting The Corporation, Lyman P.Q. Johnson

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

No abstract provided.

The Case Beyond Time, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Lyman P. Q. Johnson

The Delaware Supreme Court's opinion in Paramount Communications, Inc. v. Time, Inc.' treats several important questions that arise in connection with hostile corporate takeovers. At the same time, it leaves three critical issues unanswered. In this article, we first briefly describe what the Time decision did, comparing Chancellor William Allen's somewhat discursive Chancery Court opinion with the more peremptory ruling of the Supreme Court. Next, we identify three unarticulated but potentially far-reaching implications of both the Supreme Court's and Chancellor Allen's reasoning that threaten to destabilize seemingly settled doctrine governing the conduct of target company management.