Law Commons^™

To Know A Veil, Douglas C. Michael

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Lawyers, judges, law students, and law professors have a love-hate relationship with the doctrine of “piercing the corporate veil”—the idea that shareholders might sometimes be personally liable for the debts of the corporation. It is the subject covered more than all others in courses on corporation law. It is widely litigated, being the subject of thousands of opinions. Yet, for all this attention, it is routinely vilified by the experts. Most commentators recognize that it is jurisprudence without substance.

This Article is an attempt to form a basis for rigorous analysis of virtually every veil-piercing case and to rid the …

Shareholder Oppression In Close Corporations: The Unanswered Question Of Perspective, Douglas K. Moll

Vanderbilt Law Review

The doctrine of shareholder oppression protects the close corporation minority stockholder from the improper exercise of majority control.! Nevertheless, when a close corporation minority shareholder asserts that the majority shareholder has acted "oppressively" towards him, the minority's chance of success may very well depend on the perspective from which shareholder oppression is viewed. Consider the following two decisions:

In Priebe v. O'Malley, the controlling shareholders of a close corporation terminated the employment of Myron Priebe, a minority shareholder, for "unsatisfactory" work performance.! Priebe sued, asserting that the termination amounted to oppressive conduct! The trial court noted that "Priebe was not …

In Re Silicon Graphics Inc.: Shareholder Wealth Effects Resulting From The Interpretation Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's Pleading Standard, Marilyn F. Johnson, Karen K. Nelson, Adam C. Pritchard

Articles

This Article presents an empirical study of changes in shareholder wealth resulting from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in In re Silicon Graphics Inc. Securities Litigation, which interpreted the pleading provision established in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Reform Act"). Congress passed the Reform Act as part of an ongoing effort to protect corporations from abusive suits alleging "fraud by hindsight." In such suits, plaintiffs claimed that a sudden drop in a company's stock price was evidence that the issuer and its management covered up the bad news that led to the price drop. …