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Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Law
Proceduralism: Delaware’S Legacy, Dalia Tsuk Mitchell
Proceduralism: Delaware’S Legacy, Dalia Tsuk Mitchell
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This article examines the Delaware courts’ 1980s shift from managerialism to a theory I label proceduralism. I argue that managerialism, which justified corporate law’s deference to directors in the preceding fifty years, was corporate law’s response to social, political, and cultural concerns outside corporations. At the turn of the twentieth century, corporations and their managers were empowered to fight socialism by protecting the interests of workers, while in the midcentury, corporations became the first line of defense against the threats of totalitarianism and later the Cold War. Corporate directors were viewed as heroes and their power justified as necessary for …
What's The Deal With Revlon?, Zachary Gubler
What's The Deal With Revlon?, Zachary Gubler
Indiana Law Journal
Under the Revlon doctrine, courts are to apply a higher level of scrutiny in certain takeover situations in an attempt to control potential conflicts of interest that might prejudice target shareholders. However, the doctrine has always had sufficient “play in the joints” that one might reasonably wonder whether it has much of an effect in practice on short-term shareholder returns. Additionally, in recent years, the trend in Delaware’s Revlon jurisprudence seems to be to defer to the target board as long as there are no glaring conflicts of interest. Taken together, these facts raise concern over the continued relevance of …
Unintentional Irony In Landmark Decisions Of The Delaware Supreme Court Regarding Corporate Law, Steven J. Cleveland
Unintentional Irony In Landmark Decisions Of The Delaware Supreme Court Regarding Corporate Law, Steven J. Cleveland
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
Three landmark decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court exhibit unintentional irony: Beam v. Stewart, Smith v. Van Gorkom, and Paramount Communications Inc. v. Time Inc. In Beam, the court concluded that, regarding the decision of whether to seek remedy against Martha Stewart, her fellow directors would not have jeopardized their reputations for the minimal gain of continuing their business and personal relationships with her. Ironically, the court failed to acknowledge that Martha Stewart—in trading on material nonpublic information, which gave rise to the corporate claim against her—jeopardized her reputation (ultimately losing hundreds of millions of dollars and her freedom) for …
Corwin V. Kkr Financial Holdings Llc—An After-Action Report, Joseph R. Slights Iii, Matthew Diller
Corwin V. Kkr Financial Holdings Llc—An After-Action Report, Joseph R. Slights Iii, Matthew Diller
Scholarly Articles
Vice Chancellor Slights presented this speech as the Eighteenth Annual Albert A. Destefano Lecture On Corporate, Securities, and Financial Law at the Fordham Corporate Law Center on April 9, 2018. Includes an introduction by Matthew Diller, Dean of the Fordham University School of Law.
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
Christopher M. Bruner
The Delaware Supreme Court has set a very high hurdle for plaintiffs challenging directors' good faith in the sale of a company. In Lyondell Chemical Company v. Ryan, the court held that unconflicted directors could be found to have breached the good faith component of their duty of loyalty in the transactional context only if they "knowingly and completely failed to undertake," and "utterly failed to attempt" to discharge their duties. In this essay I argue that the Lyondell standard effectively imports into the transactional context the exacting standard previously applied in the oversight context — a move clearly aimed …
Selectica Resets The Trigger On The Poison Pill: Where Should The Delaware Courts Go Next?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas
Selectica Resets The Trigger On The Poison Pill: Where Should The Delaware Courts Go Next?, Paul H. Edelman, Randall S. Thomas
Indiana Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
Scholarly Articles
The Delaware Supreme Court has set a very high hurdle for plaintiffs challenging directors' good faith in the sale of a company. In Lyondell Chemical Company v. Ryan, the court held that unconflicted directors could be found to have breached the good faith component of their duty of loyalty in the transactional context only if they "knowingly and completely failed to undertake," and "utterly failed to attempt" to discharge their duties.
In this essay I argue that the Lyondell standard effectively imports into the transactional context the exacting standard previously applied in the oversight context — a move clearly aimed …
Lyondell: A Note Of Approbation, William W. Bratton
Lyondell: A Note Of Approbation, William W. Bratton
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
Good Faith In Revlon-Land, Christopher M. Bruner
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Short, But Interesting Life Of Good Faith As An Independent Liability Rule, Robert B. Thompson
The Short, But Interesting Life Of Good Faith As An Independent Liability Rule, Robert B. Thompson
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Deconstructing Lyondell: Reconstructing Revlon, Lawrence Lederman
Deconstructing Lyondell: Reconstructing Revlon, Lawrence Lederman
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Tender Offers By Controlling Shareholders: The Specter Of Coercion And Fair Price, Adam C. Pritchard
Tender Offers By Controlling Shareholders: The Specter Of Coercion And Fair Price, Adam C. Pritchard
Articles
Taking your company private has never been so appealing. The collapse of the tech bubble has left many companies whose stock prices bordered on the stratospheric now trading at small fractions of their historical highs. The spate of accounting scandals that followed the bursting of the bubble has taken some of the shine off the aura of being a public company-the glare of the spotlight from stock analysts and the business press looks much less inviting, notwithstanding the monitoring benefits that the spotlight purports to confer. Moreover, the regulatory backlash against those accounting scandals has made the costs of being …
Unocal Revisited: No Tiger In The Tank, Mark J. Loewenstein
Unocal Revisited: No Tiger In The Tank, Mark J. Loewenstein
Publications
No abstract provided.
The Corporate Director's Duty Of Oversight, Mark J. Loewenstein
The Corporate Director's Duty Of Oversight, Mark J. Loewenstein
Publications
No abstract provided.
Corporations, Markets, And Courts, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Corporations, Markets, And Courts, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
The times they are a changin'. Vanguard firms of the 1980s takeover boom have announced associate layoffs and salary freezes because business is down. Bankruptcy and corporate reorganization are the hot new specialties as reflected in law school class size and law firm entrepreneurialism. Acquisition activity has fallen dramatically from the halcyon days of the 1980s. The gargantuan headline-grabbing hostile bid is now rare. In particular, the "boot-strap, bust-up" highly leveraged transaction that so engaged the passions of corporate managers and raiders now seems part of the history of corporate finance rather than its future.
Many forces have played a …
Recent Judicial Developments In Delaware Takeover Law, Mark J. Loewenstein
Recent Judicial Developments In Delaware Takeover Law, Mark J. Loewenstein
Publications
No abstract provided.
Of Lollipops And Law -- A Proposal For A National Policy Concerning Tender Offer Defenses, Ted J. Fiflis
Of Lollipops And Law -- A Proposal For A National Policy Concerning Tender Offer Defenses, Ted J. Fiflis
Publications
Early last year, Mesa Petroleum Company made a tender offer for shares of Unocal Corporation in an effort to take over Unocal. Unocal responded by using the "lollipop" defense, which is a discriminatory issuer self-tender offer. Unocal's use of this defense resulted in huge economic losses to many of Unocal's small shareholders who were not knowledgeable about the ramifications of their participation or non-participation in the tender offer. The Delaware Supreme Court upheld Unocal's use of this defense as an appropriate exercise of business judgment. A federal district court in California refused to strike down the lollipop under federal law …
Two-Contract Analysis May Imperil Stock Option Plans, James F. Ward
Two-Contract Analysis May Imperil Stock Option Plans, James F. Ward
Michigan Law Review
Stock option plans generally have withstood judicial scrutiny where they have complied with the requirements developed to control the operation of this type of arrangement. It would seem, therefore, that the future of stock options is secure against even the most critical court review-that nothing in the nature of the stock option arrangement would render it vulnerable to a general attack. The writer believes that complacency in this assumption is not now advisable. Recently a view (from a respectable authority) has been introduced unnoticed into this area, and may have gained the acceptance accorded to an unsuspected imposter. This view, …