Law Commons^™

Politicians As Fiduciaries: Public Law V. Private Law When Altering The Date Of An Election, Steven J. Cleveland

Washington and Lee Law Review

In the 2019 decision Rucho v. Common Cause, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that federal challenges to partisan gerrymandering—a practice yielding election results that “reasonably seem unjust”—were non-justiciable. If partisan gerrymandering claims are not federally justiciable, and if that conclusion emboldens politicians, how else might incumbents manipulate election mechanics to preserve their political advantage? This Article explores one possibility that was briefly mentioned by the Rucho majority: the strategic advancement or delay of the date of a federal election. The strategic shift of election day is not simply a theoretical problem. Foreign politicians have strategically altered their election days …

Foreword--Comparative Corporate Law & Governance, Dan W. Puchniak, Randall S. Thomas

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Despite the challenges posed by Covid-19, especially for the student editors of the Journal, this special issue has been published on time and has been superbly edited. On behalf of the authors, NUS Law, and the Law & Business Program of Vanderbilt Law School, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to the editor in chief, Joshua D. Minchin, and the entire editorial team of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law for their remarkable skill, effort, and dedication in these challenging times. Your performance gives us great hope that the future is extremely bright.

Maine Corporation Law & Practice, Gregory S. Fryer

Maine Law Review

The scarcity of case law in Maine on corporate law issues of the day is a fact of life for corporate law practitioners in this State. While courts in more populous states fill library shelves with an ever-growing mix of corporate law decisions, we in Maine often can only wonder which way our own courts would turn if presented with those same issues. Faced with a limited amount of local case law, corporate lawyers here might rarely venture beyond well-hewn traditions were it not for two-and now three-fortunate developments. First and foremost is the Maine Business Corporation Act. The Act …

Maine Corporation Law & Practice, Gregory S. Fryer

Maine Law Review

The scarcity of case law in Maine on corporate law issues of the day is a fact of life for corporate law practitioners in this State. While courts in more populous states fill library shelves with an ever-growing mix of corporate law decisions, we in Maine often can only wonder which way our own courts would turn if presented with those same issues. Faced with a limited amount of local case law, corporate lawyers here might rarely venture beyond well-hewn traditions were it not for two-and now three-fortunate developments. First and foremost is the Maine Business Corporation Act. The Act …

International Lawyers As Disrupters Of Corruption: Business And Human Rights In Africa’S Most Populous Country—Nigeria, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

Be it bribery, embezzlement, or the abuse of public trust, corruption poses a major challenge to global security and democratic governance, along with undermining the rule of law, especially within the Global South. Key to this phenomenon is understanding how lawyers are enabling but also disrupting this epidemic. Unfortunately, the literature on this subject is lacking. This study, therefore, offers a nuanced story of globalization and the complicated role that lawyers play in corruption, by relying on the case study of Nigeria—a crucial Global South market that has the largest population on the African continent. While Nigeria has been able …

Delaware's New Competition, William J. Moon

Northwestern University Law Review

According to the standard account in American corporate law, states compete to supply corporate law to American corporations, with Delaware dominating the market. This “competition” metaphor in turn informs some of the most important policy debates in American corporate law.

This Article complicates the standard account, introducing foreign nations as emerging lawmakers that compete with American states in the increasingly globalized market for corporate law. In recent decades, entrepreneurial foreign nations in offshore islands have used permissive corporate governance rules and specialized business courts to attract publicly traded American corporations. Aided in part by a select group of private sector …

The Misuse Of Tobin’S Q, Robert Bartlett, Frank Partnoy

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recent years, scholars have addressed the most important topics in corporate law based on a flawed assumption: that the ratio of the market value of a corporation’s securities to their book value is a valid measure of the value of the corporation. The topics have included staggered boards, incorporation in Delaware, shareholder activism, dual-class share structures, share ownership, board diversity, and other significant aspects of corporate governance. We trace the history of this flawed assumption, and document how it emerged from Tobin’s q, a concept from an unrelated area in macroeconomics. We show that scholars have misused Tobin’s q, …

Horizontal Directors, Yaron Nili

Northwestern University Law Review

Directors wield increasing influence in corporate America, making pivotal decisions regarding corporate affairs and management. A robust literature recognizes directors’ important role and examines their incentives and performance. In particular, scholars have worried that “busy directors”—those who serve on multiple corporate boards—may face time constraints that affect their performance. Little attention, however, has been paid to directors who sit on the boards of multiple companies within the same industry. This Article terms them “horizontal directors” and spotlights, for the first time, the legal and policy issues they raise. The “horizontal” feature of directorships, a term often used in the antitrust …

The Morals Of The Women On Boards Story: Global Board Gender Diversity Efforts Still Need Fairness-Based Arguments To Move Regulation To The Next Chapter, Diana C. Nicholls Mutter

The International Lawyer

The number of women on boards of public companies in the United States and Canada is still staggeringly low despite the fact that both of these jurisdictions have implemented disclosure-based regulation relating to board diversity. Typically, arguments in support of regulation aimed at increasing women's participation on public boards fall into two categories: the business case and the fairness-based (or normative) case. The business case is essentially the idea that women bring some instrumental benefit to the board which leads to improvements in firm functioning or performance overall. While politically attractive, the business case for justifying regulation has yet to …

Management Succession In Korea: Tunneling, Semi-Tunneling, And The Reaction Of Corporate Law, Kyung-Hoon Chun

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Recently in Korea, certain issues of corporate law became the subjects of fierce political debates unlike many other jurisdictions where corporate law issues generally remain in the exclusive realm of professionals and academics. This Article begins with the question of why corporate law issues attracted so much political attention in Korea and whether such political attention actually helped improve the corporate law. In pursuing the answers to such questions, this Article identifies a recurring pattern: (i) existence of strict rules against seeking private benefits; (ii) various clever measures to circumvent such rules; (iii) failure of the courts to regulate such …

Corporate Governance And The Omnipresent Specter Of Political Bias, Stefan J. Padfield

Marquette Law Review

Subject to important qualifications, corporate decision-makers are dutybound to maximize shareholder value. However, there is reason to believe corporate decision-makers are allowing their political biases to corrupt their decision-making. This Essay posits two related fact patterns that should concern advocates of good corporate governance. The first occurs when decision-makers expressly disavow any duty to maximize shareholder value, such as when Apple CEO, Tim Cook, told shareholders, “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI [return on investment],” or when Ed Stack, the chairman and chief executive of Dick’s Sporting Goods, decided …