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Full-Text Articles in Law
Understanding The (Ir)Relevance Of Shareholder Votes On M&A Deals, Randall S. Thomas, James D. Cox, Tomas J. Mondino
Understanding The (Ir)Relevance Of Shareholder Votes On M&A Deals, Randall S. Thomas, James D. Cox, Tomas J. Mondino
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Has corporate law and its bundles of fiduciary obligations become irrelevant? Over the last thirty years, the American public corporation has undergone a profound metamorphosis, transforming itself from a business with dispersed ownership to one whose ownership is highly concentrated in the hands of sophisticated financial institutions. Corporate law has not been immutable to these changes so that current doctrine now accords to a shareholder vote two effects: first, the vote satisfies a statutory mandate that shareholders approve a deal, and second and significantly, the vote insulates the transaction and its actors from any claim of misconduct incident the approved …
All On Board? Board Diversity Trends Reflect Signs Of Promise And Concern, Lisa Fairfax
All On Board? Board Diversity Trends Reflect Signs Of Promise And Concern, Lisa Fairfax
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article argues that while there is considerable reason to be optimistic about the possibility that board diversity efforts will create meaningful change in the number of women who occupy board positions, that optimism must be tempered by certain trends suggesting that the board diversity effort will continue to confront challenges. The recently enacted California law mandating board diversity has the potential to significantly increase board diversity not only at those companies that fall within the law’s purview, but also with respect to other companies that may be motivated to increase their board diversity efforts as a result of the …
Activist Directors And Agency Costs: What Happens When An Activist Director Goes On The Board?, John C. Coffee Jr., Robert J. Jackson Jr., Joshua Mitts, Robert Bishop
Activist Directors And Agency Costs: What Happens When An Activist Director Goes On The Board?, John C. Coffee Jr., Robert J. Jackson Jr., Joshua Mitts, Robert Bishop
Faculty Scholarship
We develop and apply a new and more rigorous methodology by which to measure and understand both insider trading and the agency costs of hedge fund activism. We use quantitative data to show a systematic relationship between the appointment of a hedge fund nominated director to a corporate board and an increase in informed trading in that corporation’s stock (with the relationship being most pronounced when the fund’s slate of directors includes a hedge fund employee). This finding is important from two different perspectives. First, from a governance perspective, activist hedge funds represent a new and potent force in corporate …