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Full-Text Articles in Law
Rethinking "Political" Considerations In Investment, David H. Webber
Rethinking "Political" Considerations In Investment, David H. Webber
Faculty Scholarship
Five years ago, Professor David H. Webber was invited to deliver an address both to our Delaware Law School community and to the Delaware Bench and Bar as Visiting Scholar in Residence of Corporate and Business Law. Webber's Speech, "Rethinking 'Political' Considerations in Investment," made several predictions about the rise of politicized investment which were quite prescient. As relevant today as when it was delivered, this piece explores the consideration of investment factors outside the traditional realm of shareholder profit maximization, both in its current state and in the future. Webber's analysis of how investors balance the role of capital …
Externalities And The Common Owner, Madison Condon
Externalities And The Common Owner, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
Due to the embrace of modern portfolio theory, most of the stock market is controlled by institutional investors holding broadly diversified economy-mirroring portfolios. Recent scholarship has revealed the anti-competitive incentives that arise when a firm’s largest shareholders own similarly sized stakes in the firm’s industry competitors. This Article expands the consideration of the effects of common ownership from the industry level to the market-portfolio level, and argues that diversified investors should rationally be motivated to internalize intra-portfolio negative externalities. This portfolio perspective can explain the increasing climate change related activism of institutional investors, who have applied coordinated shareholder power to …
The Real Reason The Investor Class Hates Pensions, David H. Webber
The Real Reason The Investor Class Hates Pensions, David H. Webber
Shorter Faculty Works
No issue in America today better illustrates the divergent interests of working Americans and the 1 percent than pension reform. Substantial empirical evidence shows that America’s favored retirement vehicle — the 401(k), recently renounced by its own inventors — is grossly inadequate and will leave tens of millions of Americans with insufficient retirement assets. And yet states and cities are busy converting traditional pensions into these failing 401(k)s or equivalents, to the great benefit of money managers and the finance class.
Harmonizing Third-Party Litigation Funding Regulation, Victoria Sahani
Harmonizing Third-Party Litigation Funding Regulation, Victoria Sahani
Faculty Scholarship
Third-party litigation funding is no longer a new phenomenon, but rather is a mainstay in global commerce and dispute resolution. Yet many observers still consider the third-party litigation funding industry as a “wild west” due to a lack of regulation in many countries. Some of the countries that have regulations suffer from a lack of uniformity and an array of conflicting laws at the sub-national level (i.e., the laws of states, provinces, territories, etc.). For example, the United States has a confusing patchwork of state laws on third-party litigation funding. This Article proposes harmonizing the regulatory framework for third-party litigation …
The Integration Of Environmental Law Into International Investment Treaties And Trade Agreements: Negotiation Process And The Legalization Of Commitments, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
There were seventeen international investment agreements (“IIAs”) signed around the world in 2012, and each one of them contained some provision relating to the protection of the environment. In comparison, no investment treaty signed before 1985, and fewer than ten percent of treaties signed between 1985 and 2001, contained any reference to the environment at all. Environmental language has become increasingly common in bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”), and to an even greater degree in other IIAs, such as free trade agreements (“FTAs”). The legal implications of the integration of environmental law and norms into investment law treaties have yet to …
Convention Violations And Investment Claims, William W. Park
Convention Violations And Investment Claims, William W. Park
Faculty Scholarship
In theory, treaty commitments remain a foundation of international law, often expressed in the adage pacta sunt servanda: ‘agreements are to be kept’.1 In practice, however, some treaty violations remain without realistic sanctions. Here as elsewhere, the divergence between theory and practice remains greater in practice than in theory.
China In Africa: What The Policy Of Nonintervention Adds To The Western Development Dilemma, Madison Condon
China In Africa: What The Policy Of Nonintervention Adds To The Western Development Dilemma, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
Chinese investment activity in Africa has skyrocketed in recent years, outpacing every other nation except South Africa. China finances more infrastructure projects in Africa than the World Bank and provides billions of dollars in low-interest loans to the continent’s emerging economies. These loans and investments are typically made in exchange for securing access to natural resources. Based on its principles of nonintervention and respect for sovereignty, China gives this money with little or no strings attached. The West, which typically conditions its loans on initiatives like democracy promotion and corruption reduction, has labeled China a “rogue donor,” whose actions will …
Arbitration And The Fisc: Nafta's Tax Veto, William W. Park
Arbitration And The Fisc: Nafta's Tax Veto, William W. Park
Faculty Scholarship
Taxes, said Franklin Roosevelt, "are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society." Harsher tongues describe tax as a form of property seizure. Somewhere between these competing characterizations of revenue raising-club dues and forced takings-lies a clue to why the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") reserves special treatment for investment disputes implicating fiscal matters. NAFTA gives foreign investors a right to settle investment disputes by arbitration, a process more politically and procedurally neutral than either host state courts or foreign gunboats. Without the option to arbitrate, the specter of unfair expropriation might chill …