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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Law
Judicial Review In Public And Private Governance, Tomer S. Stein
Judicial Review In Public And Private Governance, Tomer S. Stein
Scholarly Works
In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court limited judicial deference to universities. In West Virginia v. EPA, the Court reduced deference to administrative agencies. In Coster v. UIP Cos., Inc., the Delaware Supreme Court narrowed deference to boards of directors, proclaimed a new standard of judicial review, and then seemingly retracted it. Common to these constitutional, administrative, and corporate law cases is unpredictability, uncertainty, and incoherence in the use and application of substantive standards of review. The resulting disarray is explicitly acknowledged by the very judges that formulate these standards of …
Corporate Governance Reform In Post-Crisis Financial Firms: Two Fundamental Tensions, Christopher Bruner
Corporate Governance Reform In Post-Crisis Financial Firms: Two Fundamental Tensions, Christopher Bruner
Scholarly Works
The manner in which financial firms are governed directly impacts the stability and sustainability of both the financial sector and the "real" economy, as the financial crisis and associated regulatory reform efforts have tragically demonstrated. However, two fundamental tensions continue to complicate efforts to reform corporate governance in post-crisis financial firms. The first relates to reliance on increased equity capital as a buffer against shocks and a means of limiting leverage. The tension here arises from the fact that no corporate constituency desires risk more than equity does, and that risk preference only tends to be stronger in banks, and …
A Conflict Primacy Model Of The Public Board, Usha Rodrigues
A Conflict Primacy Model Of The Public Board, Usha Rodrigues
Scholarly Works
e board of directors is the theoretical fulcrum of the corporate form: Statutes task the board with managing the corporation. Yet in the twentieth century, CEOs and other executives came to dominate the real-world control of the corporation. In light of this transformation, in the 1970s Melvin E. Eisenberg proposed reconceiving the board as an independent monitor. Eisenberg’s monitoring board is now the dominant regulatory model of the board. Recently two different visions of the board of directors have emerged. Stephen Bainbridge’s “director primacy” model calls directors “Platonic guardians,” and Margaret Blair and Lynn Stout’s “team production model” characterizes them …
Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose In Post-Crisis Financial Firms, Christopher M. Bruner
Conceptions Of Corporate Purpose In Post-Crisis Financial Firms, Christopher M. Bruner
Scholarly Works
American "populism" has had a major impact on the development of U.S. corporate governance throughout its history. Specifically, appeals to the perceived interests of average working people have exerted enormous social and political influence over prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose - the aims toward which society expects corporate decision-making to be directed. This article assesses the impact of American populism upon prevailing conceptions of corporate purpose - contrasting its unique expression in the context of financial firms with that arising in other contexts - and then examines its impact upon corporategovernance reforms enacted in the wake of the financial and …
Persuasion Treaties, Melissa J. Durkee
Persuasion Treaties, Melissa J. Durkee
Scholarly Works
All treaties formalize promises made by national parties. Yet there is a fundamental difference between two kinds of treaty promise. This difference divides all treaties along a fault line: Treaties that govern the behavior of state parties and their agents fall on one side. Treaties in the second category — those I call “persuasion” treaties — commit state parties to changing the behavior of non-state actors as well. The difference is important because the compliance problems for the two sets of treaties sharply diverge. Persuasion treaties merit our systematic attention because they are both theoretically and practically significant. In areas …
Corporate Governance In An Age Of Separation Of Ownership From Ownership, Usha Rodrigues
Corporate Governance In An Age Of Separation Of Ownership From Ownership, Usha Rodrigues
Scholarly Works
The shareholder empowerment provisions enacted as part of the recent bailout legislation are internally incoherent because they fail to address the short-termist realities of shareholder ownership today. Ownership has separated from ownership in modern corporate America: individual investors now largely hold stock through mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds. The incentives of these short-term financial intermediaries only imperfectly reflect the interests of their long-term holders - an imbalance only exacerbated by the bailout’s corporate governance legislation. The bailout’s focus on shareholder empowerment tactics - such as proxy access, say-on-pay, and increased disclosure - makes little sense if shareholders are …
Entity And Identity, Usha Rodrigues
Entity And Identity, Usha Rodrigues
Scholarly Works
The function, indeed the very existence, of nonprofit corporations is undertheorized. Recent literature suggests that only preferential tax treatment adequately accounts for the persistence of the nonprofit form. This explanation is incomplete. Drawing on psychology’s social identity theory, this Article posits that the nonprofit form can create a special “warm-glow” identity that cannot be replicated by the for-profit form. For example, a local nonprofit food cooperative sells more than the free-range eggs or organic strawberries that Whole Foods and other for-profits market so effectively. The co-op offers community participation and an investment in local farms, a distinctive ethos that is …
Managing Corporate Federalism: The Least-Bad Approach To The Shareholder Bylaw Debate, Christopher M. Bruner
Managing Corporate Federalism: The Least-Bad Approach To The Shareholder Bylaw Debate, Christopher M. Bruner
Scholarly Works
Over recent decades, shareholders in public corporations have increasingly sought to augment their own power - and, correlatively, to limit the power of boards - through creative use of corporate bylaws. The bylaws lend themselves to such efforts because enacting, amending, and repealing bylaws are essentially the only corporate governance actions that shareholders can undertake unilaterally. In this Article I examine thecontested nature of bylaws, the fundamental issues of corporate power and purpose that they implicate, and the differing ways in which state and federal lawmakers and regulators may impact the debate regarding thescope of the shareholders' bylaw authority.
The …
Corporate Governance Reform In A Time Of Crisis, Christopher M. Bruner
Corporate Governance Reform In A Time Of Crisis, Christopher M. Bruner
Scholarly Works
In this article I argue that crisis-driven corporate governance reform efforts in the United States and the United Kingdom that aim to empower shareholders are misguided, and offer an explanation of why policymakers in each country have reacted to the financial crisis as they have. I first discuss the risk incentives of shareholders and managers in financial firms, and examine how excessive leverage and risk-taking in pursuit of short-term returns for shareholders led to the crisis. I then describe the far greater power and centrality that U.K. shareholders have historically possessed relative to their U.S. counterparts, and explore historical and …
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Skilling; How Enron's Public Image Morphed From The Most Innovative Company In The Fortune 500 To The Most Notorious Company Ever, Nancy B. Rapoport, Jeffrey D. Van Niel
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Skilling; How Enron's Public Image Morphed From The Most Innovative Company In The Fortune 500 To The Most Notorious Company Ever, Nancy B. Rapoport, Jeffrey D. Van Niel
Scholarly Works
In this article, we explore the hypothesis that Enron's financial releases were so complex and misleading that no one could have predicted its rapid downfall, and we find that, contrary to our hypothesis, a number of people were contradicting Enron's own rosy view of itself long before the middle of 2001. We then talk about the ways in which Enron became part of the public consciousness, far beyond what it had done merely as a business entity.
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein
State Income Taxation Of Multijurisdictional Corporations, Part Ii: Reflections On Asarco And Woolworth, Walter Hellerstein
Scholarly Works
The first part of this Article, State Income Taxation of Multiurisdictional Corporations: Reflections on Mobil, Exxon, and H A 5076, did not contemplate a sequel. The Supreme Court's decisions last term in two state corporate income tax cases, however, created an irresistible opportunity to write one. The Court's opinions in ASARC0 and Woolworth picked up where its opinions in Mobil and Exxon left off. Yet the direction taken by these more recent decisions veers sharply from the course ostensibly set by their predecessors. This Article will consider the Court's latest pronouncements in this area in a continuing if quixotic effort …