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700 Families To Feed: The Challenge Of Corporate Citizenship, Tara J. Radin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, was first interviewed after September 11, 2001, a tragedy that devastated his firm and stole the life of his brother, Lutnick stated that he now had "700 families to feed." The view that he expressed was that his firm was responsible to the families of the wage earners lost in the tragedy, even though the firm was not responsible for the events that had occurred. Such assumed corporate responsibility, consistent with a stakeholder-based approach to management, is often considered to conflict with the law. The purpose of this Article is to demonstrate that …