Law Commons^™

Corporations And The American Polity, Patrick Labossiere

Student Theses and Dissertations

Research on corporate communications’ effects on politics presents an acknowledgement of a relationship between the two topics, leaving a void in the explanation and examination of this topic. The void presents an opening to introduce a conceptual process for how corporations are able to craft communications to influence the American Polity, the democratic social organization within the United States. This research begins with a historical review of how corporations gain prominence in American society, capturing the ability to participate in the democratic social organization of the polity. A qualitative analysis of several conceptual frameworks serves as data, to establish an …

A Letter To The United States Government On Wealth And Income Inequality, Matthieu Maier

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The United States of America is the world’s hotspot when it comes to income and wealth inequality. The wealthiest Americans are accumulating more and more wealth everyday while most Americans, who fall somewhere around middle-class, remain struggling and stagnant. The United States’ unchecked and deregulated system of capitalism is the root cause of our country’s inequities along with our government’s refusal to set aside self-interests and biases in order to combat these issues. From the inequality caused by rouged American systems larger issues are created that lead to complications in health, wages, standard of living, and race relations within our …

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 …

In Defense Of Breakups: Administering A “Radical” Remedy, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

Calls for breaking up monopolies—especially Amazon, Facebook, and Google—have largely focused on proving that past acquisitions of companies like Whole Foods, Instagram, and YouTube were anticompetitive. But scholars have paid insufficient attention to another major obstacle that also explains why the government in recent decades has not broken up a single large company. After establishing that an anticompetitive merger or other act has occurred, there is great skepticism of breakups as a remedy. Judges, scholars, and regulators see a breakup as extreme, frequently comparing the remedy to trying to “unscramble eggs.” They doubt the government’s competence in executing such a …

A Positive Dialectic: Beps And The United States, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

This essay addresses the interaction between the changes in the international tax regime identified by Mason and U.S. international tax policy. Specifically, I will argue that contrary to the general view, the United States actively implemented the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) recommendations through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). Moreover, the changes of the TCJA influenced the current OECD effort of BEPS 2.0. Thus, the current state of affairs can be characterized as a constructive dialogue: The OECD moves (BEPS 1), the United States responds (TCJA), the OECD …

Democracy, Deference, And Compromise: Understanding And Reforming Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Scott P. Bloomberg

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court interpreted the government’s interest in preventing corruption as being limited to preventing quid pro quo— cash-for-votes—corruption. This narrow interpretation drastically circumscribed legislatures’ abilities to regulate the financing of elections, in turn prompting scholars to propose a number of reforms for broadening the government interest in campaign finance cases. These reforms include urging the Court to recognize a new government interest such as political equality, to adopt a broader understanding of corruption, and to be more deferential to legislatures in defining corruption.

Building upon that body of scholarship, this Article begins with a descriptive …

Federal Forum Provisions And The Internal Affairs Doctrine, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, Ofer Eldar

Articles

A key question at the intersection of state and federal law is whether corpo- rations can use their charters or bylaws to restrict securities litigation to federal court. In December 2018, the Delaware Chancery Court answered this question in the negative in the landmark decision Sciabacucchi v. Salzberg. The court invalidated “federal forum provisions” (“FFPs”) that allow companies to select federal district courts as the exclusive venue for claims brought under the Secur- ities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”). The decision held that the internal affairs doc- trine, which is the bedrock of U.S. corporate law, does not permit charter …

Consent, Coercion, And Employment Law, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Articles

The Roberts Court has recently handed several high-profile wins in labor and employment law cases to anti-labor and pro-employer forces. This paper argues that those decisions replicate crucial moves made by some infamous Lochner-era cases — and that those same moves continue to underlie key elements of labor and employment doctrine more generally. In particular, these decisions rest on a contestable understanding of free worker choice. This paper begins by examining the key recent Roberts Court decisions and demonstrates that they appear to invoke at least two distinct and conflicting understandings of employee and employer choice. It then turns to …

Can Soft Words Lead To Strong Deeds? A Comparative Analysis Of Corporate Human Rights Commitments’ Enforcement, Adeline Michoud

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Mandating Women: Defending Sb 826 And Female Quotas In The Corporate Workplace, Lauren Kim

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fascism And Monopoly, Daniel A. Crane

Michigan Law Review

The recent revival of political interest in antitrust has resurfaced a longstanding debate about the role of industrial concentration and monopoly in enabling Hitler’s rise to power and the Third Reich’s wars of aggression. Proponents of stronger antitrust enforcement argue that monopolies and cartels brought the Nazis to power and warn that rising concentration in the American economy could similarly threaten democracy. Skeptics demur, observing that German big business largely opposed Hitler during the crucial years of his ascent. Drawing on business histories and archival material from the U.S. Office of Military Government’s Decartelization Branch, this Article assesses the historical …

Managerial Fixation And The Limitations Of Shareholder Oversight, Emily R. Winston

Faculty Publications

BlackRock’s recent public letters to the CEOs of the companies in which it invests have drawn substantial attention from stock market actors and observers for their conspicuous call on corporate CEOs to focus on sustainability and social impacts on non-shareholder stakeholders. This Article explores the market changes that propelled BlackRock into a position to make such a call, and whether institutional shareholders can be effective monitors of these broad social goals. It argues that while corporate attention to non-shareholder stakeholders can improve firm value, shareholder oversight of these stakeholder relationships will not succeed in having this effect.

In the past …

Of Bodies Politic And Pecuniary: A Brief History Of Corporate Purpose, David B. Guenther

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

American corporate law has long drawn a bright line between for-profit and non-profit corporations. In recent years, hybrid or social enterprises have increasingly put this bright-line distinction to the test. This Article asks what we can learn about the purpose of the American business corporation by examining its history and development in the United States in its formative period from roughly 1780-1860. This brief history of corporate purpose suggests that the duty to maximize profits in the for-profit corporation is a relatively recent development. Historically, the American business corporation grew out of an earlier form of corporation that was neither …

A New Urban Front For Shareholder Primacy, Anne Choike

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The hundredth anniversary of Dodge v. Ford marks an occasion to reflect upon what, if anything, has changed about shareholder primacy in a century. Seizing this opportunity, in this Article I analyze new local laws and ordinances that promote stakeholder governance and engagement, which seek to protect the interests of non-shareholder constituencies such as workers, the environment, and the communities in which corporations operate, among others. In doing so, I argue that such local laws meaningfully differ from traditional stakeholder protections, most significantly in the way that they weaken managerial accountability to shareholders. The emergence of these city laws challenges …

High Crimes: Liability For Directors Of Retail Marijuana Corporations, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

Selling retail marijuana in the United States is illegal — or is it? A rising number of states have legalized the retail sale of marijuana and are busily regulating these sales and the companies that make them. Even so, the sale of marijuana is a crime under federal law. Are companies that sell retail marijuana duly sanctioned, productive contributors to their state economies, or are they felons just waiting for the wheels of justice to turn in their direction? At this moment, no one can answer that question with certainty.

What is certain is that more companies are being formed …

What Is A Merger Anyway?, Don Leatherman, Joan Macleod Heminway, Thomas E. Plank

Scholarly Works

Three law professors from different practice and academic backgrounds meet at the water cooler in the faculty wing of a law school in or about 2010. They get engaged in a conversation about mergers and acquisitions that covers much ground--from what a merger actually is (from the perspective of their distinctive areas of legal experience and expertise--business associations, federal income tax, and property law) to factors each believe to be important in choosing a transactional structure for a business combination. This edited panel discussion from the 2019 Business Law Prof Blog symposium, held at The University of Tennessee College of …

From Public Health To Public Wealth: The Case For Economic Justice, Barbara L. Atwell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines how we can overlay the principle of serving the common good, which undergirds public health law, onto financial well-being. It suggests that we apply public health law principles to corporate law and culture. In matters of public health, we view quite broadly states' police power to protect the public good. Government is also empowered to protect the general welfare in matters of financial well-being. Using the “general welfare” as a guidepost, this Article challenges the conventional wisdom that corporations exist solely to maximize profit and shareholder value to the exclusion of virtually everything else. It proposes two …

The Plight Of Women In Positions Of Corporate Leadership In The United States, The European Union, And Japan: Differing Laws And Cultures, Similar Issues, Bettina C. K. Binder, Terry Morehead Dworkin, Niculina Nae, Cindy A. Schipani, Irina Averianova

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Gender diversity in corporate governance is a highly debated issue worldwide. National campaigns such as “2020 Women on Boards” in the United States and “Women on the Board Pledge for Europe” are examples of just two initiatives aimed at increasing female representation in the corporate boardroom. Several

European countries have adopted board quotas as a means toward achieving gender diversity. Japan has passed an Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace to lay a foundation for establishing targets for promoting women.

This Article examines the status of women in positions of leadership in the United States, …

Does Capital Bear The U.S. Corporate Tax After All? New Evidence From Corporate Tax Returns, Edward Fox

Articles

This article uses U.S. corporate tax return data to assess how government revenue would have changed if, over the period 1957–2013, corporations had been subject to a hypothetical corporate cash flow tax—that is, a tax allowing for the immediate deduction of investments in long-lived assets like equipment and structures—rather than the corporate tax regime actually in effect. Holding taxpayer behavior fixed, the data indicate actual corporate tax revenue over the most recent period (1995–2013) differed little from that under the hypothetical cash flow tax. This result has three important implications. First, capital owners appear to bear a large fraction of …

In The Name Of Shareholder Value: Origin Myths Of Corporations And Their Ongoing Implications, Karen Ho

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Article analyzes some of the contemporary critiques of, and debates around, shareholder value in order to illustrate why many of these contestations demonstrate underlying gaps or problematic assertions in the history and politics of shareholder value, especially if they are delimited by the narrow legal frames and neoliberal assumptions of corporations. It also provides the context necessary to explicate and ground why shareholder primacy and ownership assumptions are historically and legally flawed, and how financial values and assumptions continue to be championed (and financial power elided), despite the recent implosions of shareholder value. Part II expands …

Human Rights Incorporated, Not Everyone Agrees, Dana Johnston

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

There is a massive gap between the operations of businesses and the fundamental human rights of the workers and people impacted by the businesses. This has become apparent in the multiple major cases of abuse that have occurred in recent history. Businesses should be looking to hold their operations to high human rights requirements. Companies should be required to respect all human rights and not pick and choose which rights to deal with or which rights are easy for them to handle. Businesses have the ability to negatively or positively impact all human rights issues including, health and safety, freedom …

The Case For Accountability & Transparency: How Corporate Asset Forfeiture Creates A Conflict Of Interest, Tiffany J. Klinger

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Asset forfeiture is a tool used by law enforcement to seize property or profits related to criminal activity. Due to the public's growing distain of asset forfeiture, congressional and state reform has attempted to curtail the use of civil asset forfeiture over the past twenty years. However, little attention has been given where asset forfeiture is used against corporations. This Note sheds light as to how asset forfeiture is used against the organizational defendant and makes the following observations: First, asset forfeiture is a powerful tool in corporate criminal proceedings; however, forfeiture lacks the procedural restraints that are placed on …

The Possibility Of Prosecuting Corporations For Climate Crimes Before The International Criminal Court: All Roads Lead To The Rome Statute?, Donna Minha

Michigan Journal of International Law

Due to rapid developments in climate science, scientists are now able to quantifiably link significant greenhouse gas emissions caused by major oil and gas corporations to specific climate impacts. These scientific advances have been accompanied by the publication of documents and studies suggesting that the oil and gas industry allegedly had knowledge of climate change as early as sixty years ago, and yet it actively worked to promote climate change denial and to delay governmental regulation on this matter. Though climate-related litigation is proceeding against the industry in different jurisdictions, proceedings brought against oil and gas corporations mainly focus on …

Speech Inequality After Janus V. Afscme, Charlotte Garden

Indiana Law Journal

This Article explores the growing divide between the Roberts Court’s treatment of the free speech rights of wealthy individuals and corporations in campaign finance cases as compared to its treatment of the rights of public-sector labor unions and their members. First, it highlights some internal contradictions in the Janus Court’s analysis. Then, it discusses the growing—yet mostly ignored—divergence in the Court’s treatment of corporate and labor speakers with respect to the use of market influence to achieve political influence.

The Article has two Parts. In Part I, I explain how the Court reached its decision in Janus before critiquing the …

Shareholder Collaboration, Jill E. Fisch, Simone M. Sepe

All Faculty Scholarship

Two models of the firm dominate corporate law. Under the management-power model, decision-making power rests primarily with corporate insiders (officers and directors). The competing shareholder-power model defends increased shareholder power to limit managerial authority. Both models view insiders and shareholders as engaged in a competitive struggle for corporate power in which corporate law functions to promote operational efficiency while limiting managerial agency costs. As scholars and judges continue to debate the appropriate balance of power between shareholders and insiders, corporate practice has moved on. Increasingly, the insider–shareholder dynamic is collaborative, not competitive.

This Article traces the development of insider–shareholder collaboration, …

Antitrust's "Curse Of Bigness" Problem, D. Daniel Sokol

Michigan Law Review

Review of Tim Wu's The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.

Golden Parachutes And The Limits Of Shareholder Voting, Albert H. Choi, Andrew C.W. Lund, Robert Schonlau

Articles

With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, Congress attempted to constrain change-in-control payments (also known as “golden parachutes”) by giving shareholders the right to approve or disapprove such payments on an advisory basis. This Essay is the first to empirically examine the experience with the Say-on-Golden-Parachute (“SOGP”) vote. We find that unlike shareholder votes on proposed mergers, there is a significant amount of variation with respect to votes on golden parachutes. Notwithstanding the variation, however, the SOGP voting regime is likely ineffective in controlling golden parachute (“GP”) compensation. First, proxy advisors seem …