Law Commons^™

Revising Boilerplate: A Comparison Of Private And Public Company Transactions, Stephen J. Choi, Robert E. Scott, G. Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The textbook model of commercial contracts between sophisticated parties holds that terms are proposed, negotiated and ultimately priced by the parties. Parties reach agreement on contract provisions that best suit their transaction with the goal of maximizing the joint surplus from the contract. The reality, of course, is that the majority of the provisions in contemporary commercial contracts are boilerplate terms derived from prior transactions and even the most sophisticated contracting parties pay little attention to these standard terms, focusing instead on the price of the transaction. With standard-form or boilerplate contracts, this dynamic of replicating by rote the terms …

The Uncertain Case For Takeover Reform: An Essay On Stockholders, Stakeholders And Bust-Ups, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor John Coffee considers under what circumstances there could be a legitimate role for state regulation of tender offers. Professor Coffee suggests that state anti-takeover laws could (but do not) function to protect other stakeholders, including corporate management, in the target corporation where the implicit contract between the corporation and these stakeholders has broken down. He advances a model of corporate directors as mediators between shareholders and stakeholders in order to protect the expectations embodied in a web of implicit and explicit contracts.

Professor Coffee suggests that takeovers would be more palatable if the interests of stakeholders …

Price Adjustment In Long-Term Contracts, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

After parties enter into a contract, changed circumstance might result in one of them being dissatisfied with the price. Anticipating this, the parties could include a price adjustment mechanism in the agreement. If the mechanism is imperfect, some dissatisfaction will remain. This dissatisfaction may result in litigation with the dissatisfied party asking the court either to excuse performance or revise the contract price. For example, large changes in fuel prices since 1973 generated considerable litigation.

In this paper, I suggest a framework for analyzing price adjustment in private contracts. Contrary to most economists and lawyers, I argue that price adjustment …