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Articles 1 - 26 of 26
Full-Text Articles in Law
2.02(B)(4) Or Not 2.02(B)(4): That Is The Question, Bryn R. Vaaler
2.02(B)(4) Or Not 2.02(B)(4): That Is The Question, Bryn R. Vaaler
Law and Contemporary Problems
No abstract provided.
Disclosure Provisions Of The Model Business Corporation Act, Stanley Keller
Disclosure Provisions Of The Model Business Corporation Act, Stanley Keller
Law and Contemporary Problems
Keller discusses the "duty of disclosure" provision of the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA). The development of disclosure requirements through decisional law rather than through statutory prescriptions highlights the important question of when corporate law should be codified legislatively and when it should be left to case-by-case judicial development. The American Bar Association's Committee on Corporate Laws ("the Committee") confronted this question when considering disclosure requirements as part of its continuing evaluation of the MBCA.
The Case For Iterative Statutory Reform: Appraisal And The Model Business Corporation Act , Robert B. Thompson
The Case For Iterative Statutory Reform: Appraisal And The Model Business Corporation Act , Robert B. Thompson
Law and Contemporary Problems
Appraisal may be the Model Business Corporation Act's (MBCA) most distinctive and creative corporate law product in its sixty year history. Through a series of changes, beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and continuing through revisions in 1999 and 2006, the MBCA has shown the value that can come from an ongoing revision process of corporate law. Thompson examines the challenges that have long plagued appraisal statutes, and then evaluating the product that has resulted from the MBCA approach.
Comply-And-Explain: Should Directors Have A Duty To Inform?, John C. Wilcox
Comply-And-Explain: Should Directors Have A Duty To Inform?, John C. Wilcox
Law and Contemporary Problems
Wilcox discusses the compliance of the duty to inform of directors of publicly held companies. The expected long-term impact of a duty to inform would be to "operationalize" corporate governance policies and accustom boards to provide greater transparency about their deliberations and decisions on matters relating to governance, business oversight, and strategy. Regardless of whether a directors' duty to inform can be inferred from the Model Business Corporation Act or other provisions of state law, it could be implemented through the adoption of a charter or bylaw amendment initiated by the board or by shareholders.
Safe Harbor For Officer Reliance: Comparing The Approaches Of The Model Business Corporation Act And Delaware’S General Corporation Law, R. Franklin Balotti, Megan W. Shaner
Safe Harbor For Officer Reliance: Comparing The Approaches Of The Model Business Corporation Act And Delaware’S General Corporation Law, R. Franklin Balotti, Megan W. Shaner
Law and Contemporary Problems
Balotti and Shaner discuss the duties of and potential for imposing liability on corporate officers. The fiduciary duties of officers is addressed, in differing degrees, under Delaware law, the law frequently applied to corporate-governance disputes, and under the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA). In discharging their fiduciary duties, directors under both the MBCA and the General Corporation Law are generally protected from personal liability if, in making business decisions, they reasonably rely on the reports and records of officers, employees, advisors, and experts of the corporation.
Director Confidentiality, Cyril Moscow
Director Confidentiality, Cyril Moscow
Law and Contemporary Problems
The Corporate Directors Guidebook contains the bare proposition that a director must keep confidential all matters involving the corporation that have not been disclosed to the public. Moscow explores the need to modify the flat recitation of a rule of director confidentiality in light of the limited authority for a blanket restriction, and the necessary exceptions in the business contexts in which the issue arises. In particular, many situations do not involve damage to the corporation, or there is express or implied consent to the sharing of information.
Protecting Shareholder Access To Director Elections: A Response To Ca, Inc. V. Afscme Urging The Adoption Of A Blasius Standard Of Review For The Exercise Of A Fiduciary-Out Clause, Christopher Fawal
Duke Law Journal
The shareholder's role in corporate management is evolving. In CA, Inc. v. AFSCME, the Delaware Supreme Court likely expanded that role in a ruling that signals the potential for greater shareholder access to the corporate boardroom and enhanced director accountability. The court determined that a shareholder proposal to mandate reimbursement of certain board of director candidates was a proper subject for shareholder bylaws. But the court also held that the particular bylaw in question did not preserve the board's ability to exercise its fiduciary duties and, therefore, violated Delaware law. Future bylaws governing director nominations and elections are likely to …
The Fiduciary Duty In Mutual Fund Excessive Fee Cases: Ripe For Reexamination, Emily D. Johnson
The Fiduciary Duty In Mutual Fund Excessive Fee Cases: Ripe For Reexamination, Emily D. Johnson
Duke Law Journal
Congress imposed a fiduciary duty regarding compensation on investment advisors by adding Section 36(b) to the Investment Company Act of 1940. Legislators intended this fiduciary duty to protect mutual fund investors from excessive management fees. It has failed. Mutual fund investors continue to pay significantly higher fees than institutional investors for the same money management services. In Jones v. Harris Associates, decided in 2008, the Seventh Circuit broke with the widely followed, thirty-year-old precedent of Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch Asset Management. Chief Judge Easterbrook authored the majority opinion and Judge Posner wrote vigorously in dissent. This disagreement between two titans …
Art Deaccessions And The Limits Of Fiduciary Duty, Sue Chen
Art Deaccessions And The Limits Of Fiduciary Duty, Sue Chen
Duke Law Student Papers Series
Art deaccessions prompt lawsuits against museums, and some commentators advocate using the stricter trust standard of care, instead of the prevailing corporate standard (business judgment rule), to evaluate the conduct of non‑profit museum boards. This Article explores the consequences of adopting the trust standard by applying it to previously unavailable deaccession policies of prominent art museums. It finds that so long as museum boards adhere to these policies, their decisions would satisfy the trust standard. This outcome illustrates an important limitation of fiduciary law: the trust standard evaluates procedural care but cannot assess deaccessions on their merits. Yet this limitation, …
The Academic Expert Before Congress: Observations And Lessons From Bill Van Alstyne’S Testimony, Neal Devins
The Academic Expert Before Congress: Observations And Lessons From Bill Van Alstyne’S Testimony, Neal Devins
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Shareholder Value And Auditor Independence, William W. Bratton
Shareholder Value And Auditor Independence, William W. Bratton
Duke Law Journal
This Article questions the practice of framing problems concerning auditors' professional responsibility inside a principal-agent paradigm. If professional independence is to be achieved, auditors cannot be enmeshed in agency relationships with the shareholders of their audit clients. As agents, the auditors by definition become subject to the principal's control and cannot act independently. For the same reason, auditors' duties should be neither articulated in the framework of corporate law fiduciary duty, nor conceived relationally at all. These assertions follow from an inquiry into the operative notion of the shareholder-beneficiary. The Article unpacks the notion of the shareholder and tells a …
The Venture Capital Solution To The Problem Of Close Corporation Shareholder Fiduciary Duties, Shannon Wells Stevenson
The Venture Capital Solution To The Problem Of Close Corporation Shareholder Fiduciary Duties, Shannon Wells Stevenson
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Rupa And Former Partners: Cutting The Gordian Knot With Continuing Partnership Entities, Robert W. Hillman
Rupa And Former Partners: Cutting The Gordian Knot With Continuing Partnership Entities, Robert W. Hillman
Law and Contemporary Problems
Passage of the Revised Uniform Partnership Act (RUPA) brought change in the treatment of partnerships as entities rather than aggregates of their members. The nature of the Gordian knot that binds individuals associated in partnership and the lingering ties between individuals formerly associated in partnership are examined, and the hidden costs of continuity that RUPA imposes on withdrawing partners are evaluated.
The Limited Liability Company Experiment: Unlimited Flexibility, Uncertain Role, Wayne M. Gazur
The Limited Liability Company Experiment: Unlimited Flexibility, Uncertain Role, Wayne M. Gazur
Law and Contemporary Problems
Limited liability company (LLC) laws utilize provisions clearly of partnership origin in varying degrees. The adoption of the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act and the LLC are discussed.
Linking Statutory Forms, Larry E. Ribstein
Linking Statutory Forms, Larry E. Ribstein
Law and Contemporary Problems
Business association statutes may be "linked" in that rules from one statute are applied to a business form created under another statute; for example, the Uniform Partnership Act, the Uniform Limited Partnership Act and the Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act provide that general partnership provisions apply to limited partnerships. An evaluation of this linkage is presented.
Our Partners’ Keepers? Agency Dimensions Of Partnership Relationships, Deborah A. Demott
Our Partners’ Keepers? Agency Dimensions Of Partnership Relationships, Deborah A. Demott
Law and Contemporary Problems
Many distinctive consequences of the relationship among partners stem from applicable norms of agency law, but basic agency norms applicable to incorporated businesses are fundamentally different. Agency doctrines that are distinctive to the partnership context are examined, and their consequences and rationales are explored.
Rupa And Fiduciary Duty: The Texture Of Relationship, Donald J. Weidner
Rupa And Fiduciary Duty: The Texture Of Relationship, Donald J. Weidner
Law and Contemporary Problems
The fiduciary duty rules in the Revised Uniform Partnership Act of 1994 (RUPA) are discussed. RUPA represents a major and sufficient move toward a contractarian statement of the law.
Advancing The Search For Compromise: A Response To Professor Hynes, Allan W. Vestal
Advancing The Search For Compromise: A Response To Professor Hynes, Allan W. Vestal
Law and Contemporary Problems
The contractarian and fiduciary-based positions of the Revised Uniform Partnership Act (RUPA) and the observation that RUPA is internally contradictory and does not consistently adopt either position are discussed. Professor Hynes' discussion of the waivability of fiduciary duties under RUPA is critiqued.
Fairness And Trust In Corporate Law, Lawrence E. Mitchell
Fairness And Trust In Corporate Law, Lawrence E. Mitchell
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Foreword, Deborah A. Demott
Nibbling On The Chancellor’S Toesies: A “Roguish” Concurrence With Professor Baxter, Keith R. Fisher
Nibbling On The Chancellor’S Toesies: A “Roguish” Concurrence With Professor Baxter, Keith R. Fisher
Law and Contemporary Problems
No abstract provided.
Fiduciary Issues In Federal Banking Regulation, Lawrence G. Baxter
Fiduciary Issues In Federal Banking Regulation, Lawrence G. Baxter
Law and Contemporary Problems
It is argued that the "fiduciary" duty being claimed by banking regulators against depository institutions arising out of the S&L scandal is actually a distinct statutory duty.
Foreword, Deborah A. Demott
Oppressed But Not Betrayed: A Comparative Assessment Of Canadian Remedies For Minority Shareholders And Other Corporate Constituents, Deborah A. Demott
Oppressed But Not Betrayed: A Comparative Assessment Of Canadian Remedies For Minority Shareholders And Other Corporate Constituents, Deborah A. Demott
Law and Contemporary Problems
The distinctive Canadian contribution to the resolution of conflict among shareholders and of conflict between nonshareholder constituents--such as creditors--and persons controlling a corporation, typically its shareholders and directors, is examined with respect to comparable US judicial remedies.
Beyond Metaphor: An Analysis Of Fiduciary Obligation, Deborah A. Demott
Beyond Metaphor: An Analysis Of Fiduciary Obligation, Deborah A. Demott
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.
The Alternative-Action Requirement: The Derailment Of Santa Fe, E. C. Lashbrooke Jr.
The Alternative-Action Requirement: The Derailment Of Santa Fe, E. C. Lashbrooke Jr.
Duke Law Journal
No abstract provided.